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Letter from Zorn inspires ex-Timberline quarterback

• Published November 21, 2008

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With hands on his hips, a beaming David Thompson stood next to his favorite NFL player, Jim Zorn.

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And a 15-year-old Thompson, the gifted young quarterback, smiled as their picture was taken.

It was a hot summer afternoon in June 1978 in Cheney. Thompson's coach at Timberline High School in Lacey, Pete Fulton, drove the two of them across the state for a football camp with Zorn, the Seattle Seahawks' quarterback, and Fred Biletnikoff, the Oakland Raiders' wide receiver.

Zorn took a special interest in this young quarterback who was going to be a sophomore at Timberline.

One afternoon in between turnouts, Thompson pointed to a leather football and asked, "Whose ball is that?"

Zorn picked it up, tossed it to Thompson and said, "It's yours."

"Can you sign it?" Thompson said, grinning.

Zorn did. And the young quarterback had a treasure.

Five days later, Thompson and some friends went tubing down the Deschutes River in Olympia, getting out near Rich Road. After rolling their tubes back to the truck, Thompson jogged back down the trail to the river. Everyone else got into the truck.

"I decided I'd go and rinse off," Thompson said. "Everyone else was ready to go. I ran back down the trail and dove in without testing the water."

He dove head first from a bank 10 feet above the water. Landing in shallow water, Thompson struck his head, breaking his neck. He laid motionless, face-down in the river. Helpless, he couldn't turn to his side to get a breath.

A friend who had gone back to check on Thompson rescued him.

"I was conscious the whole time," Thompson said. "I never blacked out. I was holding my breath. I couldn't move."

Thompson spent the next six months in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup and is a quadriplegic today.

Fulton visited Thompson in the hospital nearly every day, often feeding him. The Timberline coach wrote Zorn a letter, explaining Thompson's accident.

"I thought Jim Zorn was such a good example that he might buoy David's spirits a bit," Fulton said. "I didn't know what I could do."