Jim Thomas played nine years for Edmonton from 1963 to 1971, and was one of the fastest and most dangersous running backs of that time.  Thomas, however, had the misfortune of playing on some bad Edmonton clubs.  The powerful Edmonton clubs of the 50s with Parker, Kwong and Bright were gone and the future dynasty of players like Wilkinson, Kelly, Kepley and Moon was not due until the 70s.  Thomas broke into the league with a decent rookie season, rushing for 605 yards and followed up in 1964 with 429 yards in only12 games.  It was the next three years, that marked the best years in Thomas' career as he narrowly missed the 1000 yard club in 1965 and 1966 with 981 and 989 yards, the latter in only 12 games.  Thomas a Western All-Star in 1965, and an All-Canadian in 1966.  Thomas finally made the elusive 1000 yard club in 1967 as he ran for 1006 yards and gave him his second All-Canadian selection.  An indication of how dangerous Thomas was as an offensive threat can be found in his longest carries over this period.  97 yards in 1964, 104 yards in 1965, 100 yards in 1966 and 71 yards in 1967.  Thomas didn't make it back to the 1000 yard mark again in the next two seasons, but ran more more than respectable totals of 881 and 849 yards while hitting new highs in receiving, catching 40 and 46 passes in those two seasons.  Injuries finally caught up to Thomas in 1970 as he was limited to 9 games and then only 4 in his final season in 1971.  In his career, Thomas ran for 6161 yards, a total only surpassed among Edmonton running backs by hall-of-famers Normie Kwong and Johnny Bright.

Jim Thomas passed away on October 4, 2015.

Jim Thomas in Wikipedia

Columbus loses a football legend