Solomon Thomas has never really been a hat guy.

He knew the night before his National Signing Day announcement that he didn’t really want to just pull out a Stanford hat and put it on — that just wouldn’t be him.

The morning of Feb. 5, 2014, live on ESPNU with the nation (or those in the nation awake at 5:10 a.m. Pacific Time, anyway) watching, Thomas was sitting at his announcement table at Coppell High School, and before he knew it, analyst Rece Davis’ voice was in his ear asking the fateful question: “Where are you going to play your college football?”

A nervous Thomas started to speak and got a some words out, but eventually just reached under the table and pulled out a small potted tree embellished with a Stanford banner on the pot, simply declaring, “Stanford University.”

It was certainly one of the most unique commitment announcements in recent history, and one that quickly made the rounds on the Internet among Stanford supporters and writers. But that wasn’t necessarily Thomas’ intention with his announcement; in fact, the whole thing had been entirely unplanned until late the night before.

“I don’t even have a Stanford hat,” he said with a grin. “So my friend was like, ‘Hey, isn’t it, like, “Fear the Tree?” Then pull out a tree.’”

The funny thing was that Thomas’ mother, for whatever reason, actually had a small tree lying around that was perfect for such an announcement. She took it to her friend for embellishment and sprucing up, and, well… the rest is history.

***

Thomas, an eventual five-star recruit according to some scouting services, was always going to be a highly sought commodity at defensive end due to his rare combination of size, power, agility and technique. It also helped that his high school coach at Coppell, Mike DeWitt, was fairly well known around the collegiate coaching circles and was thus able to make plugs for the young Thomas from early on.

He had more than 20 offers to choose from after his sophomore year from schools all around the nation. One high school student can only make so many visits, though, and he had to start making some difficult decisions without always having the benefit of experiencing the different campuses for himself.

“I had to evaluate them before I’d go visit and talk with the coaches,” he said. “It was easier to visit Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M and the other schools around me, but for schools far away, I really had to pick and choose which ones I wanted to go visit.”

By the end of his junior year, Thomas had narrowed down his list of schools to 13 with the help of a crafty chart that he put together with his father.

“You know how in NCAA Football 14, when you’re recruiting players, they have sections for what you’re interested in?” he said. “We had like 20 different categories and we rated them with a letter grade. It gave an overall view of each school and what each school is better at.”

After the vetting process was all said and done, the once-daunting list was down to three: Arkansas, Stanford and UCLA. And given that he liked all three schools so much and didn’t want to make a hasty decision, the process of making the most difficult choice of his life dragged on and on.

Some athletes — particularly the top recruits — wait until the morning of National Signing Day to make their announcements just for the media attention and the hype. But hype was never really something Thomas ever really desired, and the delay in his decision was 100 percent because he couldn’t bring himself to make a choice before then.

It’s not just that he didn’t care for the hype; he was also overwhelmed by the torrent of attention from media and casual fans alike, a deluge that would honestly be difficult for any teenager to deal with.

“Different schools have different fanbases, so when Arkansas found out they were in my final three, I probably got about 3,000 Arkansas followers [on Twitter],” he recalled. “I had probably 1,000 Texas followers before, then on National Signing Day, my friends kept track of it and they said I lost like 3,000 followers in like an hour.”

Not that he really cared.

And, as is the case with any five-star recruit, sportswriters harassed Thomas around the clock on his cell phone. They tried to push him into saying “the wrong thing,” he said, to make him slip that he was leaning towards a certain school. Although he got adept at sidestepping and handling the media after a while, the residual effects of the media onslaught still affect Thomas today.

“It was crazy — I hated random numbers calling my phone,” Thomas said. “To this day, if I see a random number, I won’t answer it because from the recruiting process, it was everyone calling all the time and asking for interviews. It’s a lot for a high school athlete to go through that is not used to that.”

In fact, he only kept in touch with one writer throughout the entire process — ESPN’s Damon Sayles, a writer that had gained his respect with his sensitive and tactful approach in reporting the untimely death of Thomas’ best friend during his junior year.

But two days out from Signing Day, neither Sayles nor any of the coaches from Thomas’ top three teams were going to get the opportunity to pick his mind regarding his decision. Throughout the process, Thomas had made it clear that he was going to take the last day to think to himself.

Finally, at 9 p.m. on his day of reflection, at the tail end of a painstaking two-and-a-half year process, his mind was finally made up.

“I got done after a workout and in the car ride home, I thought I had to make a decision soon — now is the time,” he said. “So I called [Stanford head coach] David Shaw on the way home and I said, ‘I’d like to commit.’”

***

It was six o’clock in the morning on National Signing Day, and Thomas was already awake, showering and getting ready for one of the biggest days of his life.

He put on a suit and packed his tricked-out mini-tree and freshly-taped glasses — his everyday pair, it’s worth noting — in a small carry bag and headed to school, where he was making his announcement.

And in front of around 60 people showing their support for the talented lineman, he made the announcement that changed his life.

“It happened and it was a dream all come true,” he said. “It all happened so quickly. I was really nervous, but once I did it, I was very relieved and I knew I made the right decision. I was just glad it was over with because it was a long, stressful process.”

Thomas had first period off, so he grabbed a quick bite to eat at the deli in town and went home to change out of his suit. But staying true to his status as a newly committed Stanford student, he went back to class. AP classes, of course: European History, English and Statistics.

“I still had to prove to Stanford that I deserved to be in because they told us that they could take away our acceptance letter at any time,” he said. “Some other students wouldn’t have so much of a demand their senior year, but I’m glad I did.”

***

As highly touted as he was, and as much of a media darling as he was through the recruitment process, Solomon Thomas never did end up playing a snap for Stanford during his freshman season.

It was a quick transition from what was seemingly the center of the nation’s attention to relative obscurity, but true to form, that was completely okay with the soft-spoken Thomas. It’s not hard to tell that the rising sophomore will be a huge factor in the Cardinal’s defense moving forward on a defensive line decimated by graduation, and his return to the spotlight will almost certainly come with time.

But until then, his experience in the limelight is limited to what he went through as a high schooler in the recruiting process. Though there were downsides, he also looks back at the time as a unique few years that will always be part of him.

“Enjoy the experience because you’re never going to have it again,” he said. “You’re never going to have people wanting to know your every move, wanting to know where you’re going every weekend.

“It’s creepy, but that’s what everyone told me. Take as many visits as possible. Take it all in and enjoy it. Don’t take it for granted.”

Contact Jordan Wallach at jwallach ‘at’ stanford.edu and Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.