Norm Thombs drives home from a just-for-fun reunion of recent Winthrop High School athletes thinking that the school’s and town’s wounds are closing.

The former coach sees a community finally moving forward after five suicides, all in a 26-month span, all involving 15-to-24-year-old young men who wore green-and-white for the school’s storied football team.

Then his telephone rings, and Thombs’ wife or secretary fields the call from somebody representing somebody famous.

No less an authority than Sports Illustrated has made the United Methodist Church camp director a celebrity, of sorts. Thombs was interviewed by prize-winning senior writer E.M. Swift for a feature story, “What Went Wrong in Winthrop?,” that appeared in the magazine’s current issue, dated Jan. 9.

“Some kids cringe at the headline,” said Thombs. “They start to think, Maybe there is something wrong with us.’ It becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Thombs viewed the essayist with suspicion and gives Swift’s finished product a mixed review, at best.

He’s grateful for any platform that addresses the scourge of suicide and the trail of broken hearts it leaves behind, his own included. But he also understands the words “copycat” and “cluster” and recognizes the sway of suggestion that one person’s selfish, irreversible act may have on the next.

“I’m scared to death of it,” Thombs said.

One tragedy didn’t necessarily follow the other in Old Testament, so-and-so-begat-such-and-such fashion. But here are the inescapable facts that anyone with an ounce of passion invested in this town must deal with:

Jason Marston, Lee St. Hilaire, Bryant Donovan, Troy Ellis and Chad Garwood each took his own life, in that order.

Each, at one time, played football at Winthrop.

There were extenuating circumstances in each case that likely had a hell of a lot more impact on their decisions to end it all than football did. (OK, so that’s more opinion than fact. So sue me. If Swift has the right to editorialize after a week of absorbing the local color, certainly the hack living up the street is entitled.)

Lastly, each individual down the line attended most of the wakes and memorial services that preceded their own demise, taking in all the requisite reminiscences. It doesn’t take Dr. Phil to conclude that a cluttered, young adult mind might interpret a miasma of mixed messages from those celebrations of life.

Thombs and a mostly new school administration at Winthrop are left with divided interests. They want to get the word out about suicide prevention. They want everyone to know they’re doing something about it. And they want to be left alone.

“I don’t want to say it’s a double standard,” Thombs said, “but in one paragraph (Sports Illustrated) is talking about how terrible it is, and in the next they’re going into graphic detail about each kid. My worry is that it’s just bringing up this stuff for everybody again and again. Every time someone comes around, we get this attention.”

And with every supermarket, drug store and airport newsstand across the fruited plain selling their weekly stash of America’s most recognizable sports weekly, the attention is spreading like flu.

CNN and NBC called Thombs’ home on Tuesday afternoon. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if the tabloids and talk shows are far behind.

It’s small consolation that Sports Illustrated’s piece testified on behalf of the Winthrop coaching staff in the court of public opinion.

“They sent (Swift) here thinking they were going to find that football was to blame or something like that,” said Thombs. “By the time he spoke with me, the first thing he said was, I understand completely now that these kids had other traumatic things going on their lives.’

“People want to blame football, and I really take exception to that. I believe in my heart that athletics are great for young people. And we dont place our kids on a pedestal any more than anybody else. Its not like Lee St. Hilaire had people walking up to him on the street throwing roses at his feet.”

Thombs resigned from coaching after the 2002 season, long before the tragic cycle began. He was active in his ex-players’ lives before the suicides and continues as a friend and mentor.

His last alumni get-together brought in more than 70 players. They laughed. They cried. They spoke of good times and bad.

Other times, Thombs will help current coach Joel Stoneton bring in Winthrop graduates to address current players about the challenges of life in the real world after the cheering stops.

“Those kinds of things don’t get any media attention,” Thombs said.

As he finished that statement, a phone rang in the background.

“You feel like you’re a spokesperson,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “Sports Illustrated. Prime-time TV. You wonder when its going to end. We cant seem to move on.”

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].