I Tried Out For The NFL While Secretly Smoking Crack

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning · Sep 16, 2026 · 1h

Jerod Thomas grew up in what he calls a "house of horrors" — two alcoholic parents, a father who drank a fifth of vodka a day and turned violent, and weekends spent walking on eggshells. He was dyslexic in an era when no one caught it until his second year of eighth grade, bullied relentlessly, and told by his own father that if he didn't learn to fight, he couldn't stay in the house. Football became the one place the chaos made sense — fast, loud, and violent, just like home.

Against every odd, Jerod became a college football star at Marshall, playing under future NFL head coach Rex Ryan…