Hall of Fame: Joe Thomas, Brookfield native, reaches 'the pinnacle'

Brookfield's Joe Thomas joining Hall of Fame

Brookfield native Joe Thomas will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday after starring with the NFL's Cleveland Browns.

BROOKFIELD, Wis. - For Joe Thomas, the doors of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will swing open Saturday, Aug. 5.

The Brookfield native went on to star for Wisconsin Badgers and eventually the NFL's Cleveland Browns. FOX6's Tim Van Vooren sat down with a man who's no Average Joe

Van Vooren: "With all you've accomplished in life, and all the things that have come your way, how do you view this period of your life?"

Thomas: "I think this is kind of the pinnacle of all the things that I did athletically, from the time I started playing third grade rec basketball in Wauwatosa, to going to Wisconsin and playing track and football for the Badgers, getting drafted by the Browns – this is the pin, the final pinnacle moment for me in my sports career."

Van Vooren: "Could you have envisioned it – I know that's such a clichéd question, Joe – could you have envisioned getting to the so-called pinnacle?"

Joe Thomas signs to play for the Wisconsin Badgers

Thomas: "I don't think I ever envisioned it, and I honestly think that was one of the benefits that I had because I was so happy playing any sport…that allowed me to absorb the things that were happening around me…try to be the best teammate that I could, try to have the most fun that I could without giving up any one sport.

"There's a part of me as an offensive lineman that is still kind of uncomfortable with the spotlight on me, because I'm used to that being ‘holding,’ ‘offsides,’ ‘he gave up a sack,’ like I'm much happier when nobody's talking about me, when nobody's calling my number out in the stadium, so this is going to be a little bit different."

Van Vooren: "How did you, or now as you reflect, how do you measure individual success when you didn't have a ton of team success, Joe?"

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Thomas: "That was always a challenge and mentally, by year 10 and 11 (with the Browns), I was starting to be a little bit broken…I started seeing that we just didn't have enough talent to compete. We'd have the Packers coming to town and they've got Aaron Rodgers, and we've got somebody not named Aaron Rodgers – I'm not going to put anybody on blast right now – but it became difficult knowing that it didn't matter no matter what I did. Now as I transition to be an elected and then an enshrined NFL Hall of Famer, it feels like maybe some of that hard work and that dedication, that commitment even though you didn't get the wins, it was still worth it.

"I'm not grabbing any handoffs, catching passes, scoring touchdowns, getting sacks – so what can i do for my team? And understanding that I'm a servant as an offensive lineman…and I think that gives you great purpose when you're playing and when you're done, if you're just trying to serve yourself, and your own needs like 'oh, I just want to go fishing all day today', 'I just want to go in the woods and hunt and forget about everything,' for a few months, that sounds great, but after a while I think you feel like you're just kind of treading water. Since the focus when I was playing was me and my teammates and my sport and my team, that my focus in retirement was going to be my kids and my wife, that was going to be the priority."

Joe Thomas plays for the Cleveland Browns

Van Vooren: "Hall of Fame is often attached to the word immortality."

Thomas: "It's weird thinking that because I don't think of myself as a Hall of Famer as somebody who is a part of football immortality, and I wonder if it will sink in somewhere down the line. Don Davey from the Badgers and the Packers texted me yesterday, and we were talking about a bunch of different stuff. He said I just want you to know how proud all of the Badger brotherhood is of you. It made me really proud thinking about that and as a Badger, being part of football immortality, he was like, 'I hope it sinks in some day' and I was like ‘I don’t know if it will.' Maybe when I'm old and sitting in my rocking chair, having an old fashioned it might – Wisconsin to the end, yeah, that's right." 2313

Thomas will be the final speaker of all the selections at this year's induction ceremony. He said he might try to slip in a joke or two, but his main theme will be one of gratitude for all of those who have helped him make it to the shrine.