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Aloha's Thomas Tyner attends a graduation party at the home of Tom and Liz Fisher, one day before he leaves home for Eugene to begin the next chapter in his football career.

(Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)

Thomas Tyner's phone will not stop ringing.

One second, it's a college coach leaving a message to say he's boarding a plane headed for Portland and wants an in-home visit. The next, it's an irate Oregon fan threatening to kill the Ducks commit for announcing on Twitter moments earlier that he planned to visit other colleges.

But Tyner isn't answering. Instead, on a mid-October night last year, the Aloha High School senior escapes to his garage.

It's the 18-year-old's "special spot." It's where the fastest prep athlete in state history retreats when the hype grows too burdensome. It's where he can lose himself plunking the notes to his favorite song, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," on the family piano.

"Whenever I play piano, it's like everything else is just not even there," Tyner said late last month before starting summer classes and workouts with the Ducks. "I just get into my own zone. I'll play for hours."

Such meditative sessions have become commonplace the past couple of years. As Tyner smashed state record after state record on the gridiron and the track, the spotlight on him grew brighter. Reporters tried to pull him out of class for interviews. Strangers mailed him sports merchandise they wanted autographed. Bloggers started nitpicking his near-flawless game.

Most days, the soft-spoken Tyner ignores the spotlight's glare. But the 6-foot, 220-pound phenom never forgets that someone with his unique package of size and speed has much to lose.

"He understands who and what he's playing for," Thomas' father, John, said. "But it can all be taken away in a second. ... He's constantly aware of that."

'Thomas Rules'

You know the tale. The five-star prospect's childhood was a cliché of criminal pathology: father in jail, mother working multiple jobs, neighborhood offering casual violence.

This isn't that story.

Tyner's mom, Donna, is a risk management consultant at the Port of Portland, and his dad is a criminal defense attorney in Hillsboro. When Thomas and older brother Michael were kids, their nightly routine included a bath and a story at their Aloha home. Thomas' parents introduced him to Christianity at an early age and enrolled him in piano lessons in third grade.

It wasn't long, though, before Donna and John learned their youngest son was a bit different than his classmates.

As a first-grader, Tyner scored 18 goals in one of his first Aloha Youth Soccer games. Parents were livid. So John, Thomas' coach, created what he called "Thomas Rules." The 6-year-old was limited to four scores per game.

When the speedster reached his maximum within the game's first few minutes, he simply darted past the opposition with the ball and waited patiently for a lagging teammate to kick it into the net.

He dominated every sport he tried.

There was the time when Tyner, then 6, tagged along to his older brother's third-grade football practice and breezed his way to a win in the 40-yard dash. There was the time he was a state place-winner in wrestling as a fifth-grader before dropping it to play club basketball.

And there was the time when an 11-year-old Tyner anchored a 4x100 relay against a Sunset girls varsity team that had placed at the state meet. Tyner came from behind to best the high school upperclassman in the adjacent lane by more than 20 meters.

"That really screwed with those girls' heads," John Tyner said. "I mean, I'm sure it doesn't feel good losing to an elementary schooler."

When Tyner reached eighth grade, former Aloha High School varsity coach Chris Casey recalled, it was clear he was a major Division I-caliber talent. He bulldozed his diminutive competition, leading his Warriors team to a perfect 10-0 record and a league championship. Sometime that fall, a coach clocked the middle-schooler at a 4.38-second 40 — a time that would make most NFL running backs envious.

Maybe you shouldn't send him to Aloha for high school, friends started telling John Tyner. Maybe he'd do better at state powerhouse Jesuit.

Out of the question, John thought. Sure, the Warriors hadn't beaten a Beaverton team in nine years. But a middle school-aged Thomas saw more than blowouts when he glanced up at the scoreboard at Aloha's varsity games. He saw change on the horizon. He saw an opportunity to give a working-class community — his community — a much-needed boost.

"I learned from a young age that it's all about your team and your community," Tyner said. "Nothing's as important as that."

Aloha's own

Tom Milligan was in a hurry. He had flown into Portland International Airport after an October 2010 business trip, and was late to a Tyner-led Aloha team's home matchup against No. 2 Jesuit.

Milligan, the father of a Warriors quarterback and friend of the Tyners, hopped into his car and turned to the live radio broadcast of the game. Almost instantly, he heard Crusaders running back Jordan Talley score on a six-yard touchdown run to nab a 6-0 edge.

Here we go again, Milligan thought. We're going to fall to Jesuit for the 25th time in a row.

Soon after arriving at the Warriors' stadium, the former Aloha Youth Football board member scanned his surroundings. The standing-room-only crowd was giddy. Aloha, which would outlast the Crusaders 38-25 that night and finish the season with its first-ever football state title, had used another workhorse effort from Tyner to grab the lead.

A thought crept into Milligan's consciousness: We needed this.

For nearly two decades before Tyner's 2009 freshman season, Casey said, Aloha grappled with low self-esteem. New Beaverton-area schools sprang up in the 1990s and attracted much of the Warriors' top talent. Aloha, which had more than 57 percent of its student body on free or reduced lunch last year, regularly finished at the bottom of the Metro League in nearly all major sports. It became known as a misfit.

"Aloha needed something to rally around," Milligan said. "I think what Thomas did is he helped make this community proud of something again."

It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

Alohaâs Thomas Tyner leaves a trail of Glencoe defenders as he scores on a 95-yard run during the Warriorsâ first-round playoff win at Aloha in November.

Hardly an interview has passed without Tyner referencing how the people of Aloha have impacted his life. Their actions — the fundraising, the charity events, the supportive gestures — taught him the importance of caring for others. Casey's team-oriented program helped him mature from an apprehensive 14-year-old into a confident young man. Aloha's blue-collar mentality taught him the value of hard work.

"Aloha has really shaped him," said Blake Richard, Tyner's closest childhood friend and a recent Sunset graduate. "It's made him more appreciative."

Thomas was a regional draw by the time he hoisted the state championship trophy as a sophomore at Reser Stadium in December 2010, less than two months after that landmark Jesuit win.

He owned one of the top 100-meter times in the nation. He boasted scholarship offers from some of the Pac-12's top programs. And he was just a couple of weeks away from becoming the first big-school sophomore to earn The Oregonian's All-State offensive player of the year award.

Still, acquaintances said it was easy to forget about his newfound notoriety.

Rather than fret over stats or brag about awards, Tyner tried to lead a normal life. He spent his free time attending Wednesday night youth group meetings at Solid Rock Church, devouring McDonald's with friends or catching cheap movies at local theaters.

"I never really saw Thomas as a star or anything," said Robbie Milligan, Tom's son and Thomas' longtime teammate. "I knew he was really good, but I never saw that whole Hollywood side of him. He was just normal."

Stressful year

Casey had an unexpected visitor on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in October 2012. It was Tyner, and his voice was heavy with regret.

"Hey, I'm changing my phone," the senior said. "Just wanted you to know."

The longtime coach sat down in his Aloha office with his star running back.

"What's wrong? Are you OK?"

The Oregon commit explained that he had pressed send on a seemingly harmless tweet. Though he still hoped to honor his verbal commitment to Oregon, he wanted to let people know that he planned to visit other schools. No big deal, right?

Apparently, it was.

Columnists penned stories. Coaches made emergency recruiting pitches. Strangers left threatening messages on his cellphone and Twitter feed.

Thomas couldn't understand. Why would 40-something-year-old men care where an 18-year-old attends college?

"He was just shellshocked," Casey said. "He had no idea that was going to cause that kind of firestorm."

The spotlight was taking its toll, said Tyner, who had gained national attention about a month earlier when he notched a state-record 643 yards and 10 touchdowns in a win over Lakeridge. He wanted to escape the hype. He wanted to focus on the Warriors' upcoming game at Jesuit.

The high school All-American called coach Chip Kelly a day and a half after posting the tweet to reaffirm his commitment to the Ducks.

Tyner — who rushed for a single-season state-record 3,415 yards and 45 touchdowns his senior season — ran for a season-low 100 yards in a 56-13 embarrassment against Jesuit, and previously unbeaten Aloha won just one of its final four games. Tyner finished his high school career with a 13-point loss to West Salem in the second round of the playoffs.

And the stress continued to mount. Tyner didn't have the SAT scores or the grade-point average he needed to qualify for a Division I scholarship. Arguably the most dominant high school player in state history was staring down a stint at junior college.

Desperate to step on the Autzen Stadium turf next fall, Tyner sat out his final Aloha track season and started meeting with two tutors four days a week.

As his mother closely monitored his progress, Tyner reached Oregon's academic benchmarks. He ended the second semester with a 3.5, his highest GPA ever.

"Dude, all the stuff with the grades and stuff stressed me out so much," Tyner said. "I'm just glad it's over and I'm good now."

The plan

On a clear night late last month, John Tyner took a seat and leaned on the table in front of him. The affable, supportive father had spent much of the past three hours laughing and joking with friends at a high school graduation party.

Tyner was ready to share details of a plan he crafted with his 18-year-old son: If everything goes according to schedule, John said, Thomas will wrap up an All-American football career at Oregon after three seasons. He will attend the 2016 NFL Combine in February before heading back to Eugene to run his final track season with the Ducks.

That summer, Thomas will try to race in the 100 meters at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And if that doesn't work out? Thomas will join his respective NFL minicamp on time.

The lawyer figures Thomas will project as a Trent Richardson-type prospect in the NFL. Richardson, a former SEC offensive player of the year who went No. 3 overall to the Cleveland Browns in 2012, earned a four-year rookie contract worth $20.5 million.

The "standard deviation of the mean" for an NFL running back's career, John Tyner said, is about two and a half years. Despite potentially earning NFL-size paychecks, Thomas, who plans to study journalism at Oregon, will likely have to "find something else to do" before he hits his late 20s.

"So that's the template," John Tyner said before taking a sizable pause. "But anything can happen. How many running backs even make it through a college career?"

Therein lies John's chief concern: Thomas has struggled with durability. His sophomore year, he missed one football game and withdrew from the finals of a national track meet with a hamstring injury. He missed three football games as a junior because of a concussion, and two because of a sprained ankle before that nagging hamstring injury significantly limited his track season.

Combine that with Thomas' every-play-is-his-last running style, John reasons, and "the plan" could hit a snag. Of course, there's no sense in worrying too much. Thomas, who should challenge rising sophomore Byron Marshall for the Ducks' primary running back gig this summer, doesn't plan to alter his never-surrender approach when the season opens Aug. 31.

"He's a lion," Casey said. "He goes hard all the time, no matter what. That won't change."

Thomas has grand ambitions for his freshman campaign. He wants to play major minutes. He wants to win a national championship.

But he also feels a twinge of reticence about his future. The self-described homebody knows it'll be impossible to re-create the community atmosphere he enjoyed at Aloha. And he understands that the microscope will only intensify under the bright lights of the Pac-12.

That's why Tyner plans to hitch a ride back to Aloha — he doesn't have a driver's license — whenever he gets the chance. He wants to catch a Warriors game during Oregon's bye week. He wants to eat his mom's food. He wants to play Call of Duty with friends.

And who knows? Maybe he'll slip into the garage and sit down at the family piano.

-- Connor Letourneau