Ray Thomas-Ishman points to different spots on his body, ascending from his left calf to his thigh to his back, identifying exactly where the five bullets entered his body on Oct. 4, 2013. Then the offensive lineman who is a prospect in this week’s NFL Draft relayed what he was told by a doctor in the emergency room eight years ago.

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“If I was smaller,” Thomas-Ishman said during an interview this spring, “I’d be dead.”

Thomas-Ishman, who played last season as a graduate transfer at Buffalo after starting three years at UMass, is 6-foot-3 and 313 pounds. He wasn’t far off from that weight when he was a high school sophomore at Simon Gratz in Philadelphia and gunshots were fired during a fight after a game. Thomas-Ishman was wounded in five spots — two on his calf, two on his thigh and one on his lower back — before he was raced to the emergency room. At the moment, the idea of playing college football, much less in the NFL, was of little concern.

“He could have been paralyzed, could have lost his life,” said his older brother, Hakeim Thomas-Cooper.   

It becomes common during the draft buildup to hear stories of players who’ve endured hardship, who’ve overcome some travail on their path to becoming a pro prospect. Those stories have merit, and to reach the point of draft consideration already indicates that a player defied the odds. Thomas-Ishman, who is ranked by The Athletic’s Dane Brugler as the No. 34 guard in the draft, would fit that category. But the marvel for Thomas-Ishman is not that he’s on the radar of NFL teams. It’s that he’s alive.

“I don’t want to be on a T-shirt, I don’t want a bunch of teddy bears on a corner for me,” said Simon Gratz coach Erik Zipay, explaining Thomas-Ishman’s thoughts after recovering from the 2013 incident. “I’ve got bigger plans for myself.”

Thomas-Ishman was still in uniform when he left the stadium with a group of friends to celebrate a victory over Dobbins Tech on that fateful Friday night in 2013. They encountered another large group and a war of words ensued with “somebody from the neighborhood” over a girl. 

“It was like a big argument going back and forth,” he said. “I’m basically just trying to break it up like, ‘Yo, we’re really just trying to leave.'”

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It turned into a fight. Thomas-Ishman intervened.

Then came the gunfire. He tried to run — until he couldn’t. 

“You heard it, you didn’t know where it was coming from,” Thomas-Ishman said. “There were no cars or nothing. I just collapsed, my body collapsed and I couldn’t move.”

His body froze. He couldn’t move his legs. He remembers the “puddle of blood” that surrounded him. Security personnel from the stadium and teammates tried to help. The ambulance took too long to arrive, so two police officers lifted him into the car to race him to the emergency room. 

Zipay, who was a few blocks away, rushed to the hospital to be with Thomas-Ishman. 

“I entered the emergency room and I didn’t know what I was walking into,” Zipay said, “but we were blessed that night.”

The doctors in the emergency room were able to remove four of the bullets. (The fifth was dislodged a few years later.) The bullets narrowly avoided arteries and his spine. His body mass and muscle were part of the reason.

“It’s a miracle I’m alive,” Thomas-Ishman said. “Everybody’s not built like that. … That’s how I looked at it. It’s crazy. Try to process everything, and hearing I might not be able to do certain stuff again, I just locked my head on. I got a determination.”

“To get shot five times — and in the lower body, lower back — and not have permanent issues? That’s a blessing within itself,” Thomas-Cooper said. 

It took Thomas-Ishman almost a year before football was a consideration again. He pushed to return earlier, but Zipay kept him sidelined until he was fully healthy. Thomas-Ishman needed to relearn how to walk. He maintained a presence with his team while on crutches. What became clear was that he re-emerged with a newfound perspective about the choices to make and what his future could present. 

“His turnaround was that point right there when he got shot,” said Richard Cheek, a school counselor and mentor to Thomas-Ishman. “When he got shot and sat him down, it changed his life.”

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He became a captain of the football team. He committed himself as a student. Teachers from high school still check in on him. He accepted a scholarship to UMass. 

It also affected the way he viewed gun violence, which is surging in his hometown. (NFL safety Will Parks, a Philadelphia native, called gun violence a “pandemic within itself” in Philadelphia during an August interview.) There were 1,820 victims of gunfire in Philadelphia in 2020, according to the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence. There have already been 469 shootings this year. City and state officials met last week about the problem. 

If Thomas-Ishman hears anything that sounds like a gunshot, his body freezes, he said. He heard a gunshot a few months after the 2013 incident and the wounds in his body burned. The way he speaks about what happened eight years ago comes with the cold understanding that these stories are a reality in his neighborhood — and that he survived.

“Makes me appreciate being here each day,” Thomas-Ishman said, “and the opportunities that I have and the things I’ve already achieved.”

Thomas-Ishman started at UMass as a true freshman playing mostly left guard. As an independent team, the Minutemen’s schedule included SEC programs. His first college game was against Florida. He played against 2019 first-round pick Montez Sweat when UMass visited Mississippi State for the fourth game. 

The experience emboldened Thomas-Ishman, making him believe that he could match up against the nation’s top pass rushers. He realized he needed to take better care of his body. Thomas-Ishman had gained 60 pounds by the start of his freshman year and weighed in at 398 pounds. He shed 42 pounds for the 2017 season. Thomas-Ishman started 11 games that year at left tackle, which was where he also played in 2018. 

He transferred to Buffalo after there was a coaching change at UMass. He said he didn’t see “eye to eye” with the new staff at UMass, which suspended him in 2019 for violating team rules. Thomas-Ishman played in six games for Buffalo during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.

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“I’m proud of where he came in football, but I’m proud of him that he stuck it out with his grades as a student, got his degree, kept up a good grade-point average,” said Thomas-Cooper, whose brother had a 3.3 GPA in college.

Thomas-Ishman wants to play in the NFL, although he also realizes he’s fortunate to even be able to consider an alternative. He beams with pride when discussing his diploma. A scholarship meant that he graduated without debt. He can recite the average length of the NFL career and knows that his time on an offensive line — however long it lasts — will be finite. He majored in building, construction and technology, having taken an interest in construction while working for his uncle’s construction company.

He prepped for draft workouts with former NFL Pro Bowl offensive lineman Willie Anderson. He’s been training in the Philadelphia area. Whether he is a late-round pick or goes undrafted, he should have a chance to earn a spot on a training camp roster. The odds are long for those players, a plight that doesn’t intimidate someone who was on an emergency room bed with five gunshot wounds.

“I couldn’t see past the year,” Thomas-Ishman said of his 2013 self. “I was trying to make it past the year at that point, just regular surviving.”

Surviving means something to Thomas-Ishman. He’s visited a juvenile facility in Philadelphia three times to speak to kids about gun violence. He works out with players at his high school, the place where he almost lost his life. He’s learned that his normal shouldn’t be normal, and he knows his life could have been different.

“I came this far,” Thomas-Ishman said. “I’m going to keep going.”

(Top photo courtesy of Ray Thomas-Ishman)

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