As his NFL career blossomed, Julius Thomas said he started having questions. Why was the team practicing a certain way? Why was the offense running this scheme? What was the philosophy behind it all?
The two-time Pro Bowl tight end recalled pushing his coaches for clarity. But at multiple NFL stops, their answer was the same: ‘They said, ‘Hey man, we don’t pay you to think. We pay you to run.”
Thomas took it as a sign. At just 30 years old, he decided to walk away from the bruising world of the NFL to pursue a new career in a notably less bruising field: Clinical psychology.
After seven seasons of pro football, including two as a go-to target for Peyton Manning with the Denver Broncos, Thomas retired in 2018 and enrolled in psychology courses at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. He learned about behavioral neuroscience, contributed to a study on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), launched a high performance and wellness company and, earlier this month, graduated with a doctoral degree in clinical psychology.
It’s been a welcome change for someone who, for so much of his life, was viewed through the lens of his athleticism and powerful 6-foot-5 frame.
‘That was the hardest part of being an athlete for me: I felt like my real talent was mental, but I wasn’t able to show it, and I wasn’t able to develop that side of who I was,’ he told USA TODAY Sports.
‘It’s really cool to be able to have the (psychology) degrees and the training, to show that I have that side of me, too.”
Though Thomas, now 36, walked across the stage at graduation earlier this month, he said his academic training won’t completely end until he wraps up his one-year clinical residency at Nova Southeastern’s Psychology Services Center in September. He’s amassed more than 2,000 hours of real-world experience this year alone − teaching classes, working in clinics and seeing patients in therapy between the ages of 10 and 71.
‘I’ve got to get some great perspective that I never could’ve imagined having,’ Thomas said. ‘Going from being around millionaires and billionaires to serving people in community mental health clinics that can only afford $10 for a session or sometimes no money at all. Getting to see that juxtaposition in peoples’ lifestyles and their challenges, but then getting to see the commonality, right?
‘It doesn’t matter what you have, it doesn’t matter what you’ve earned. The experiences mentally and emotionally can be challenging.’
‘A big nerd!’
Thomas never thought he’d come back to school − let alone to study subjects like psychology and behavioral neuroscience. He was a business administration major during his undergraduate days at Portland State, where he primarily played Division I basketball.
After being drafted by the Broncos in the fourth round in 2011, despite having played just one year of college football, Thomas soon established himself as a major contributor with Manning under center. He racked up 12 touchdown catches and made the Pro Bowl in back-to-back years in 2013 and 2014.
But after joining the Jacksonville Jaguars in free agency on a big-money contract, the injuries started to hit. The Jaguars traded him to the Miami Dolphins, who cut him after one season. It was around that time that Thomas said one of his now mentors, a sports psychologist, invited him to sit in on some classes.
By the time the start of the 2018 season rolled around, Thomas had decided to retire and move on to his second career. In an essay for The Players’ Tribune announcing his retirement, he described the move as a ‘journey into self.’
‘For me, stepping away wasn’t as hard as I’ve seen it be for other people,’ he explained. ‘Even when I was in college, I was always interested in how I would do outside of sports. What would I get into?’
Psychology courses quickly allowed Thomas to stretch his mind in new ways. They also opened the door for him to seek answers to some of the other questions that had popped up during his NFL career, including those around CTE, the neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head.
Thomas started taking neuroscience classes, in addition to psychology, and contributed to research about CTE in current and former football players, boxers and fighters. He said researching the disease actually somewhat eased his nerves, by illustrating cases in which former athletes had evidence of the disease without the major symptoms.
‘We don’t know how many people may have had the pathology and didn’t have the symptoms,’ said Thomas, who is also president of the Society for Sports Neuroscience. ‘So I do think there’s a connection between severe symptomology and CTE, but from what I’ve studied and learned, I’m less nervous about CTE than I’ve ever been. Just because I think there’s a lot of things combined in CTE symptomology that you can help with by staying on top of your health.’
Professor Jaime Tartar, who collaborated with Thomas on that research, said he brings a rare combination of skills and experiences to his work − an ability to call on his experiences as an athlete when needed, but also thrive in academic and clinical settings without it.
‘It’s easy to forget that Julius had a career in professional football because he’s such a thoughtful, curious and deeply analytical person,’ Tartar, who chairs the department of psychology and neuroscience at Nova Southeastern, wrote in an e-mail. ‘In other words, he is a big nerd!’
The complexity of humanness
Thomas said the motivation behind his new career is to help people become ‘solid from the inside out.’ He’s fueled by the moments he spent looking across the locker room at a teammate and thinking ‘man, somebody should help that guy.’
But his experience in the NFL doesn’t mean he wants to be known as only ‘the athlete psychologist.’
In fact, as he worked towards his doctoral degree, Thomas was struck by the common threads between athletes and working professionals in other careers − writers, producers, accountants, lawyers.
‘Being a human is hard. It’s always been hard,’ Thomas said. ‘Study history. Read some of the most successful, high-performing people of status. Read their memoirs. There is no protection from inner struggle.’
Thomas is trained in the type of work that people often associate with therapy − the unpacking of past experiences or traumas − but said he is most interested in the part of the process that comes after: Helping people find new ways to level up in their lives or careers.
So, in 2023, he founded a high-performance and wellness company called Optimal Performance, which aims to provide resources for everyday working professionals. He speaks and consults with companies and teams, and is in the process of assembling a group of experts who can provide advice on everything from sleep and stress to personal finance.
‘Every industry, every discipline has different sets of behaviors that help you be really great in that,’ he said. ‘I love helping people dial in on what are the behaviors that are going to help you get towards where you want to go, professionally. But then also, what are the behaviors that are going to help you create the vision for your personal life?’
Thomas said he hopes to expand and focus more on Optimal Performance after completing his clinical residency this fall − the next step in what he called ‘a phenomenal life journey.’
He figures he’s probably one of the few people lucky enough to play in an NCAA tournament game, catch a pass in the Super Bowl and wear a white coat as a doctor at a hospital.
‘I pinch myself all the time,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how my life has twisted and turned this way, but I’m very grateful.’
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tom.schad@bsky.social.