While on the mend, Highlands’ Thimons develops leadership skills

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, August 16, 2018 | 10:33 PM

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Daniel Thimons pointed out the calluses on his hands at a recent Highlands football workout.

The toughened skin came not only from dogged sessions in the weight room, where the senior two-way lineman spends most mornings, but also from an unexpected summer sidekick: the pair of crutches that have been carrying Thimons around since June.

A left-foot fracture that required surgery means Thimons is spending the early days of Highlands’ training camp watching from the sidelines or the trainer’s shed, and he’s champing at the bit to get off the crutches and back on the field.

“I hate it,” Thimons said bluntly. “I always thought of myself as very active, and I can’t sit down for more than 10 minutes or be inside unless I’m doing something. I hate being on crutches. (I’ve been) sitting around, just lifting, upper body.”

Thimons suffered the injury playing with Highlands’ basketball team in its summer league at Robert Morris. In his first game back from vacation, Thimons leaped to get a rebound and landed on the basket stanchion, his foot going sideways. The impact broke the fifth metatarsal in his foot, and he later had surgery to insert a screw.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get back, but I can’t rush it,” he said. “If I break it now, then I’m done for the season. If it’s not healed, I have to just wait it out. That’s the part that (stinks).”

Perhaps he ended his vacation one day too early, but Thimons isn’t blaming basketball, his second-favorite sport. For now, Highlands’ only full-time returning starting offensive lineman is picking up the ins and outs of moving on crutches and taking mental repetitions.

“He’s going to be a big part of what we do, not just with his physical play but with his leadership, with the experience and knowledge that he has,” Highlands coach Dom Girardi said. “Hopefully, he can pass that along to some of the guys he’ll be playing with on the line. I know he will because he’s already proven he’s a good leader for us. It’s great to have him for the physical aspect, but also for the mental and leadership aspect.”

Thimons is a natural lead-by-example type, but admits he’s not the most vocal leader, unlike his older brother, former Highlands QB/LB Brayden Thimons. Girardi is pushing the younger Thimons to speak out more, especially as he’s sidelined.

“I’m definitely getting better at it,” Thimons said. “Going from my brother, who as soon as he sees something wrong, he just says it right there to your face, I’m more of an introvert. It’s different.”

Thimons also differs from his older brother in position. While Brayden, now a sophomore linebacker at Robert Morris, gravitated to quarterback on offense — “I think the only reason he played quarterback is because he liked to run the ball,” Daniel joked — the younger brother prefers clearing holes to running through them and collapsing the pocket on defense instead of passing from it.

The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Thimons started every game at left guard as a junior and added 52 tackles and a team-high six sacks at defensive end, helping the Golden Rams post a 5-4 record.

“The thing that distinguishes him, I believe, would be his quickness,” Girardi said. “He does have the strength and everything, but especially for an offensive lineman, he’s very quick. That certainly helps, and we try to take advantage of that as best as we can.”

Once he returns to the field, Thimons will move from left guard to left tackle, which Girardi said he likes for both run-blocking and pass protection purposes.

Not only will Thimons need to learn a new position, he’ll have a new crop of linemates after Lukas Lamer, Chance Pittman and Marcus and Mario Sienko graduated. Fellow senior Ethan Jones also played on the line last year, but the new group will have a hard time matching the production of the 2017 cast, which gave up just nine sacks all season as quarterback Seth Cohen passed for 2,000 yards.

“I was with that line since I was a sophomore,” Thimons said. “So I knew all those kids, I hung out with them on the weekends and stuff, so we always had that bond. I knew them a lot, and when I played with them, I was the younger kid. Now when I play with them, this is a younger line. It’s kind of switching around on me.”

Thimons hopes to return in time for the season, but Girardi said he’ll “err on the side of caution” before bringing him back. Highlands has a Week Zero game against Plum and a nonconference game at Keystone Oaks in Week 1 before opening conference play Sept. 7 against Blackhawk.

That extra week gives Thimons more time to heal and more time to get acquainted with his linemates as he works his way back into the lineup.

“Chemistry, I feel is one of the most important things, especially on an offensive line,” Thimons said. “For an example, say I’m taking over another guy’s block, if we’ve been playing so long together, he knows that I can get there. With these other kids, this year it’s going to be interesting. As soon as I get back, it’ll be fun to at least try (and) see where we’re at and build off of that.”

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

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