The New York Times-20080127-Linked by Blood and Roots
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Linked by Blood and Roots
Full Text (1483 words)Six years, six miles of two-lane country roads and an indeterminable amount of blood are all that separate Justin Tuck and Adalius Thomas. Super Bowl XLII will link them like never before.
Coosa County won't lose, said Eva Thomas, the gregarious mother of Adalius, a linebacker for the New England Patriots. But one of their families will.
Across the living room, Jimmy Tuck nodded and smiled politely, as is his way.
That's right, he said. His son, Justin, is a defensive end for the Giants.
Actually, Justin Tuck, 24, and Adalius Thomas, 30, are part of the same family, cousins to some degree, although no one can quite say exactly how they are related.
On Wednesday afternoon, Jimmy Tuck and Eva Thomas sat in the house along Highway 9 where Adalius Thomas grew up. In the next room were the various totems of football success: trophies, framed jerseys and countless photographs. The Tucks, in their house down the road, have a similar shrine to their son.
They bandied family surnames, mentioning various grandparents and great-grandparents. It was as if they had never had this conversation. The relation, they thought, has to do with their grandmothers. It is hard to tell here because people have lived among the rolling hills for so long that their family trees are entwined like ivy.
Most of us are double kin, Eva Thomas said. After you get past the third cousin, we just stop counting.
The fact that Justin Tuck and Adalius Thomas are cousins seems to matter only to outsiders. What people in Coosa County ponder is the probability that two boys from one small high school (about 100 in each graduating class), in a rural county of few stoplights (11,000 people across 652 square miles), could play in the same Super Bowl.
I'm not sure that's ever been done before, Joe Belyeu, Central Coosa High's athletic director, said Wednesday by the school's trophy case. He is Jimmy Tuck's first cousin. Their mothers were sisters.
Two framed football jerseys, a shade of Giants blue, hung above the trophy case: Thomas's No. 2 and Tuck's No. 80, both retired. Thomas and Tuck played tight end and linebacker for teams that were rarely better than mediocre. If anything, Central Coosa, in Rockford, is a basketball school. Belyeu has coached the Cougars to four state basketball championships, including one with Thomas and two with Tuck, each playing center.
A girl walked through the door wearing a No. 91 white road jersey of the Giants. It was Brittany Tuck, the youngest of Jimmy and Elaine Tuck's seven children. She turns 18 Tuesday.
A moment later, as if scripted, another girl entered, wearing a dark No. 96 Patriots jersey and walking on crutches from recent knee surgery. It was Ashia Thomas, 17, the youngest of Adonis and Eva Thomas's five children.
Justin Tuck's little sister and Adalius Thomas's little sister, classmates and football cheerleaders, stopped to chat.
We played already once, Brittany Tuck said, referring to the Patriots' 38-35 victory against the Giants in the regular-season finale. And we only lost by 3.
The girls promised to root for the other's brother, but not for the other team. Those with more divided loyalties at the school can buy a T-shirt, printed last week, with photographs of Tuck and Thomas.
This is all a little surreal to the Tuck and Thomas families. Adalius Thomas (whom his family calls Da-Da, pronounced day-day) went to Southern Mississippi and was a sixth-round draft choice of the Baltimore Ravens in 2000. He won a Super Bowl seven years ago, against the Giants, and signed a free-agent contract with New England last spring that could be worth $35 million over five years. He had six and a half sacks for the undefeated Patriots.
Tuck went to Notre Dame and was a third-round choice of the Giants in 2005. Playing end and tackle, he had 10 sacks in 2007. This month, he signed a contract extension that could earn him $30 million for five years.
Little of the fame and fortune has filtered into Coosa County, where the median household income is about $30,000. Adonis Thomas is a Baptist pastor and a school bus driver. Part of his route is along County Road 71, where he picks up Brittany Tuck and takes her to school.
Elaine Tuck, a childhood classmate of Adonis Thomas's in nearby Goodwater, finished a 30-year career at Russell, an athletic equipment company, in November. Russell has been in the area nearly 100 years, first as a mill. It moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 1999. Jobs have bled away.
Jimmy Tuck spent nearly 24 years working in the warehouse of a local home builder, then six at Russell. For the last six years, he has worked for the Alabama Department of Transportation, helping track construction equipment, from cones to graders. He is 57 and wants to work five more years, Lord willing.
He also serves as a deacon at a small brick Baptist church, where Justin Tuck helped lead the Sunday school program before he went to college.
Justin Tuck called after signing his extension. He asked what he could buy for his family.
I told him 'nothing,' Jimmy Tuck said. A former basketball player, he is tall and thin, but sturdy. I told him that the best gift is to live life, show respect and represent Kellyton, Ala.
Jimmy Tuck -- Jimmy Lee, as he is often called -- clocked out of work Wednesday morning and rode shotgun in a rental car. For six hours, he led a one-person tour through the area and the lives it has produced.
He pointed toward downtown Kellyton: a few small buildings scattered on a winding road, with no sidewalks. This is where you pay your water bill, Tuck said, pointing to one building.
There's the fire station, and that's where we vote, right there, he said. And all of Kellyton was in the rearview mirror.
A few miles away is the brick three-bedroom Tuck house.
That's where I stay, he said, a phrase he used when pointing out the houses of others. Not live, but stay.
Justin Tuck's favorite memories are of playing basketball in the driveway, playing football on an uneven field nearby and sitting at a card table on the porch playing dominoes with uncles.
That was back before video games, Elaine Tuck said. A grandson was watching Dora the Explorer on television.
Next door, a couple of football fields away, is where Jimmy Tuck was reared. His 80-year-old father, Justin's grandfather, still lives there. His grandmother, who helped care for the children when Elaine was working, died in 2001, weeks after Tuck left for Notre Dame.
The entire stretch of road is lined by Tucks. One of Jimmy Tuck's brothers lives next to their father. A sister lives across the street. Uncles and other relatives outnumber the non-Tucks. A car passes every few minutes.
Six miles away, down this lonely road, is the Thomas house. Adalius Thomas is often said to be from Equality, but his house is actually in Nixburg, Adonis Thomas said. Eva Thomas's sister lives across the street, in their mother's old house.
There are too many relatives in the area to count. About 20 of them will make their way to Glendale, Ariz., for Super Bowl XLII. Nine members of the Coosa County Tuck contingent will be there. Adalius Thomas called Justin Tuck -- they talk every couple of weeks -- last week, looking for more tickets.
As Eva Thomas and Jimmy Tuck sat in the living room, they talked about their children and the coincidence -- or is it more than that? -- that their lives are intersecting, again, like this.
Jimmy Tuck sat across the living room on the couch, his Nike hat in his hands. It'lljust be a joy to see both of them compete and be friends, and hopefully no one will get hurt, he said.
Eva Thomas said, That's right.
Somebody will lose. But not here.
[Illustration]PHOTOS: Patriots linebacker Adalius Thomas, above and at left as a tight end and linebacker at Central Coosa High, won a Super Bowl with the Ravens seven years ago. (PHOTOGRAPH BY, ABOVE, DAVID DUPREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS); Giants defensive lineman Justin Tuck, above and at left in elementary school, had 10 sacks this season. He was drafted out of Notre Dame in 2005. (PHOTOGRAPH BY, ABOVE, CHRIS MCGRATH/GETTY IMAGES); Several generations of the Thomas family, left side, and the Tuck family at Central Coosa. Members of both families will attend the Super Bowl. (PHOTOGRAPH BY DANA MIXER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg.D1); Justin Tuck's family includes, from left above, his mother, Elaine; father, Jimmy; and grandfather Leroy. Adalius Thomas's sister Ashia, far left; and parents, Adonis and Eva. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANA MIXER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg.D4)MAP: Tuck is from Kellyton, Ala., and Thomas is from Nixburg.