Step into John Thornton's office.
It could be at the Paul Brown Stadium locker he's held for the last six seasons. It could be in his new Indian Hill home, where his family has decided to settle after he bequeaths the locker to another defensive tackle. It could be at the Montgomery Road Panera, a hot spot for his five Web sites via his ever present laptop over breakfast.
Need a photo from one of his charity events?
"Tell me where to send it," he shoots out in one of his endless texts.
Oh yeah, he's also in charge of getting the T-shirts for his big event of the year.
"I've got some money left over from my Reebok allotment," he says. "It's a great deal. I get 300 shirts."
But today the office is at Princeton Bowl, home of the 6th Annual John Thornton and Friends Bowling for Autism. Thornton is not only CEO of the event. But he's also the marketing manger, public relations director, Webmaster, and he's ripping off another text.
"Great turnout. Raised a lot of money. Marvin, Carson, Tom Jackson showed up along with about 20 other teammates."
A lot of money?
 Thornton |
"I almost fell out of my chair," is the way Donna Murray remembers it. "We're a total volunteer organization and it's just hard to raise money. There are so many great causes out there and to have a celebrity just call up out of the blue and say he wants to help."
Thornton cringes at the word "celebrity."
Not his style. He's got the nice home, the nice wife, the nice life, but this is still a D-tackle from the hard streets of Philadelphia.
So he ditched the corporate sponsorships this year and just sold each lane for $200 (RSVP at bowl97@gmail.com, of course) and still got a full house like he always has.
"This time it was just John Thornton and friends," he says. "I just wanted something where people could hang out and have a good time. Not have to get dressed up, or get mobbed for autographs."
Low-key, which is the way Allison and John Thornton and their two kids like it.
But this all started a little closer to hysteria.
Jalen, their oldest, didn't stop crying for his first six months. Allison, not only a nervous mom but also a childhood development major at West Virginia, knew the basics of autism but she began to immerse herself in the subject with growing concern.
"One of the warning signs is not making eye contact," says Allison, who met John while both were in school at Morgantown. "It turned out that Jalen had a terrible case of colic, but what I found out is how frustrated the parents must be. I couldn't bond with my child."
Allison often thinks of the irony. Jalen isn't autistic, which is a disease of social and behavioral deficits. He's now an outgoing seven-year-old, but his parents have been dedicated to the cause ever since.
Thornton got the big ball rolling while he played in Tennessee after their big scare and made the call to keep it going when he got here. Allison plans to devote more time to the Greater Cincinnati Society of Autism once Ty, Jalen's preschool brother, starts going all day.
"I'm not sure even John realizes what he has meant to us," Donna Murray says. "We don't know why more children are being diagnosed, not just in Cincinnati, but all over. There is more awareness now; there is no question about that."
 Thornton poses with a few of his volunteers. |
And if anyone knows where that $150,000 has gone...
"A variety of research. Scholarships at local colleges. Helping our families organize social events," Murray says. "A lot of it is helping our families. Newsletters. Informational packets. Meet and greets. We're trying to connect families."
The greatest day in the month of a family dealing with autism can be a simple night at the movies set aside for other such families. No one looks twice if someone has a meltdown. It is one of those rare relaxed nights out.
That's why Murray's favorite part of the Thornton's event is watching the families have fun on the lanes that Thornton has donated for their use. And to watch them interact with Bengals always gives her a charge.
"It's very laid back," she says. "I've never seen a player not give an autograph or not get in a picture, or not sign a shirt. That's something that is really special for the families."
Thornton is their kind of guy. He gets kidded by teammates that call him a "Man of the People" because he's so good with the media. But Allison says Jalen is more outgoing than his dad.
"But I know he likes talking to you guys," she says.
When John and Allison talked to each other about the post-NFL years, she decided she disagreed with him about living in Scottsdale, Ariz. She wanted to be closer to her home in West Virginia.
"I wasn't going to live in some small town where I couldn't use my cell phone," he says. "I had to be somewhere that had some Verizon towers, so we looked around Pittsburgh a little bit. We didn't find anything."
So Allison asked, "Why not here?" which is why they have just moved into a home they had built a Carson Palmer toss away from their original house in Indian Hill.
"It's so easy here," she says. "We've got a great network of friends and it's a great place to raise kids. And it's only about a four-hour ride to my family."
 Lewis |
Lewis, the guy who stands up in front of his players and tells them about events like this one and urges them to support their teammates in the community, is now 6-for-6 at Thornton's.
Of course, the Thorntons have been solid supporters of the Marvin Lewis Community Fund. Allison had been a lock to win the Baltimore trip for her and three other friends until John put a stop to that so he could win the bid on four Diamond Seats for the Reds.
"I wanted to give them back," he says with a laugh, "because I found out later they're good for any series but the one with the Red Sox."
But he's probably already blogged that somewhere between jt97.com and bengalscentral that he has revived. He loves to tinker and now he's into cameras. He's posted some behind-the-scenes video clips of the '06 trip to Denver and he plans to take a new camera into the nooks and crannies of the upcoming training camp.
But it has gone beyond tinkering. He develops Web sites in his free time, but in true low-key Thornton fashion he hasn't approached any of his teammates yet.
This might be his last shot to get those pictures. This could be his last camp as a Bengal, given that he'll be 32 before the end of this season, the last of his six-year deal. He left a Titans team that had been a perennial playoff club, but even though he has only been to one postseason with the Bengals, he says, "I have no regrets."
"Why?" he asks. "I came to a 2-14 team and I felt like we could turn it around and I think we have. Yeah, we've had some things happen the last couple of years. Arrests, injuries. But a lot of things happen in a lot of places. Every year is new. It has nothing to do with the year before."
But it looks like there will always be a bowling event for autism. Except Thornton may be going big time on us.
"After I'm done playing, I'm going to start a foundation and I'll probably hire someone to run it," he says.
But there will always be the texts.
"Cool thanks," he fires back.
Which wouldn't be a bad way to sum up his work in The Office.
No matter where it is.
