Helping youths was a 'golden' rule at the school that produced Hall of Famer Antonio Gates

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Pro Football Hall of Famer, Detroiter Antonio Gates on his transition from basketball to football

* Antonio Gates, a 1998 Detroit Central High School graduate, is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

* Gates, a multisport athlete, excelled in basketball at the collegiate level before transitioning to professional football.

* As an undrafted free agent, Gates became a star tight end for the San Diego Chargers.

* The Detroit community, including former coaches and teammates, celebrated Gates' achievement and his connection to the city.

It can be said that Thomas Wilcher helped to set the gold standard for student-athletes at Detroit's Central High School by the time he graduated in 1982.

A high school All-American in football as well as track and field -- a sport where he set state records as a hurdler -- Wilcher also found time to win all-city honors in swimming before heading off to the University of Michigan, where he played running back for the legendary Bo Schembechler and was an All-American hurdler.

However, on the morning of July 27, Wilcher was busy heaping praise onto another Detroit Central legend -- who was only days away from being presented with a gold jacket in Canton, Ohio, during one of the most prestigious and sacred ceremonies in all of sports.

"I'm impressed, I'm happy and I'm ecstatic," Wilcher proclaimed in a voice that sounded calm, proud and excited as he described his feelings about the Aug. 2 induction of 1998 Detroit Central High School graduate Antonio Gates into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "I'm also thankful to have known a great young athlete, with a great attitude and great self discipline, who treated everyone around him with respect."

Wilcher says the qualities he attributed to Gates were apparent to him during football practices on the venerable Central High School football field in the Dexter-Linwood neighborhood just before the start of Gates' senior season.

"I was helping out (the late) Coach (Woody) Thomas and I didn't even know Gates' name, but I saw this big, strong, tall, young kid who was always very polite," said Wilcher, who, like his mentor, Woody Thomas, is enshrined in the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame for the football program Wilcher later elevated to prominence at Cass Tech. "You could see right away that Gates was a great football player. But it was his manners, which showed me that he respected the knowledge and culture that he received from his neighborhood, because we've had a lot of great people that have come from Central's neighborhood.

"That's what I would say about Antonio Gates: He loves Detroit. He loves his high school. And he loves his community."

However, Wilcher, now the athletic director for the Harper Woods Schools District, admitted that there was a period of time when he lost track of his fellow Central Trailblazer, and that is actually easy to understand. After Gates graduated from Central, where his list of honors as a senior included being a Detroit Free Press All-State selection in football and the runner-up to Clarkston's Dane Fife for the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award, his next stop was Michigan State University, which ended without Gates playing a game for then-football coach Nick Saban or basketball coach Tom Izzo. Gates would finally get going in college sports at Eastern Michigan University, where he appeared in 18 games as a member of the basketball team during the 1999-2000 season, which also reunited Gates with his former Central High teammate Dante Darling.

But Gates' time at Eastern Michigan would be relatively short lived as well. And the next time that most of the world had an opportunity to see him compete in a sporting competition again was when Gates joined the Kent State University basketball team for the 2001-2002 season. The Golden Flashes reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament during Gates' first season at Kent State, and he followed that up by being a first team All-Mid American Conference and honorable mention All-American selection in his final year as a college athlete. Nonetheless, NFL scouts that attended some of Gates' basketball games and other talent evaluators shared a belief that football was the sport that provided the greatest potential for the Detroit native to excel as a pro, which set the stage for a new chapter to be written in the life of a multitalented athlete.

Swapping basketball sneakers for football cleats

Gates' professional football journey and subsequent march to the Pro Football Hall of Fame began without fanfare as an undrafted free agent of the then-San Diego Chargers in 2003. Despite not playing a down of football since his last game as a Central High School Trailblazer six years earlier, Gates did not take long to establish himself as a potent offensive weapon at tight end after breaking into the starting lineup during his rookie season. And when Gates and the Chargers played divisional road games against the Oakland Raiders during Gates' 16 NFL seasons, a friendly face clad in Central High School's blue and white colors could sometimes be spotted amongst a sea of silver and black worn by the raucous Raider Nation.

"I loved Trailblazer Antonio Gates so much that I almost got killed cheering for him at Raiders games," George Law said with a chuckle, on the afternoon of July 27.

A January 1979 graduate of Central High School, Law said he made a few trips up to the Oakland Coliseum while working as a carpenter for the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority. The New York native playfully shared another story about how a hostile road game against Kettering High School, when he was a member of the Central football team and still new to Detroit, schooled him about the seriousness of Detroit rivalries, while also making him fearless -- to a degree -- when confronted by an unfriendly crowd.

But Law was much more serious when he described his reaction when he first heard in February that Gates, a member of eight Pro Bowl teams, was a part of the 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame induction class with Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Sterling Sharpe.

"In watching Antonio Gates play, I knew many years ago that his Hall of Fame day would come because teams tried to design defenses to stop him," said Law, who, in the role of Detroit Central's High School's alumni historian, takes great delight in studying all things related to Central, which originally opened at the intersection of Warren Avenue and Cass Avenue in 1896 as the successor to Capitol High School, whose roots in Detroit date to 1858. "But when I heard the news that Gates was a part of this year's Hall of Fame class, I just started crying tears of joy because of what it means for the Detroit Central community.

"It's a tribute to all of the coaches and teachers and administrators back in the day at Central. Great people like Dr. Chester Rogers, (Assistant Principal) Clarence Jackson, Coach Dott Wilson, Coach Woody Thomas, and Coach Snead, who I only called 'Coach' for about the first few weeks after I came to Central and then it was 'Dad Snead' and it's still 'Dad Snead.' Those men would take money out of their own pockets to help kids. Mr. Jackson would even keep the lunchroom open to allow students from Northwestern High School and Cass Tech to eat after school if they were hungry.

"That's a great legacy and Antonio Gates came out of that."

Today, the legacy that Law spoke about is continued by Jimmie Macon, who, along with being the current head football coach at Central, also was a part of Coach Thomas' staff when Gates played, and was coached by Snead and Thomas as a member of the Central football team from 1979 through 1983.

"We (former Central High School football players) all come back and help the program in some capacity," said Macon, whose current coaching staff includes three former Central graduates -- Kelvin Wilson (offensive line), Kalvin Hall (wide receivers) and Ian Macon (offense/defense analyst) -- along with Brandon Williams (offensive coordinator), Keith King (defensive coordinator), Pierre Von Bank (defensive backs) and Darryl Clark (strength and conditioning). "People don't realize the history that we have at Central as Detroit's oldest public high school. And our coaches and community have always reached out and helped the student-athletes coming through the program.

"That's how it was with Antonio from Day One. We were there to keep him lifted up and it's a great feeling to see a young man take the proper steps to reach his goals in life."

Macon spoke during the evening of July 28, and later that night the family of the late Woodrow "Woody" Thomas explained how a wise coach predicted -- years before Gates' NFL career -- that football, not basketball, would be Gates' "bread and butter." And, as it turns out, the distinguished gentleman who the Central football field is now named after, wanted all of the Central High School students to live Hall of Fame lives in their own way.

"Daddy always made an impact on all of the students and the community," Relonda Alexander Thomas, who was joined by her sisters, Renita Thomas Roulhac and Regina Thomas-Jones; and her mother, Ruth Thomas, said of her late father. "He built bridges with families. And that's how it feels to us to see Antonio go into the Hall of Fame: it feels like a family member is receiving that gold jacket."

And that sentiment was echoed by Ruth Thomas, whose support for her husband's football and track teams at Central included cooking meals because Coach Thomas was always concerned about students getting enough to eat.

"Antonio was always a sweet young man," Ruth Thomas, who recently celebrated her 85th birthday with her family, stated. "And I gave him the nickname 'Gator.' "

Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city's neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber.