Fortunately for Indiana basketball, forward Race Thompson didn’t follow in the family footsteps. As you may know, his father is a legend at the University of Minnesota.
Darrell Thompson played running back for the Golden Gophers and is still the Minnesota career record holder in rushing yards (4,654) and all-purpose yards (5,109). He went on to play for the Green Bay Packers for five seasons.
Darrell picked up 98 of those 4,654 yards on this memorable play.
Interestingly, Darrell was at Minnesota during the same time (1986-89) that IU’s all-time leading rusher Anthony Thompson was at Indiana. He rushed for 1,641 yards and seven touchdowns during his NFL career.
But this isn’t about Darrell.
Collectively the Thompson family has 4 of the 14 Big Ten schools covered. Of course Race is at IU. His mom, Stephanie, played volleyball at the University of Iowa from 1986-89. His sister Dominique played volleyball at University of Wisconsin.
Indigo might be the smartest of them all. She left the cold Midwest winters to play volleyball at San Diego State University.
Towering over the rest of the family, Race was the only Thompson to choose basketball in college, and he chose the best Big Ten school for that — if we do say so ourselves.
But only one of the Thompson children chose to follow Darrell at Minnesota.
You have to wonder if Darrell and Stephanie saw this coming — that one of their sons was going to race off to Indiana, and the other would stay true to form and follow in his father’s footsteps.
Of course we are referring to Race’s older brother True Thompson, who plays wide receiver at Minnesota. Listed at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, True is a redshirt sophomore.
True spent two years at Iowa Western Community College, which included a redshirt year. He played in 10 games there and made four receptions for 65 yards.
True has yet to see the field for Minnesota during the 2018 season. He wears jersey No. 26.
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