GREEN BAY – His mother couldn’t believe the email came from her son because the boy she hadn’t seen in 23 years was supposed to be dead.

That’s what doctors told Michelle Hooshing all those years earlier. She was 13 years old when she gave birth to a boy she named Calvin Darnell, a boy with a heart murmur doctors didn’t expect to live past 10. A foster child in south Florida, Hooshing reluctantly gave up her son for adoption one month after birth.

She searched for him through his childhood, tracking the name Calvin Darnell with no results. Now, a young man named Ahmad Thomas was contacting her on Google Plus, claiming to be her son.

“She thought it was some cruel joke or something,” Thomas said. “But when I told her what my name used to be, she knew it was me.”

The boy named Calvin Darnell was adopted at 3 months old by Marvice Thomas, who raised him as a single mother. Thomas gave her name to her son, calling him Ahmad Thomas. The boy not only lived past 10, but he grew big and strong, a star linebacker at Miami Central High. He got a scholarship to Oklahoma, where he converted to safety and was a captain his senior season.

Now, less than a year after signing to their practice squad last November, Thomas hopes to crack the Green Bay Packers' 53-man roster. A spot opened when Jake Ryan’s season ended last week with a torn ACL, and the first-team reps Thomas has gotten since indicate he has a real chance at earning a job.

https://www.packersnews.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2018/08/05/green-bay-packers-linebacker-ahmad-thomas-learning-roots-adopted-birth-parents-memorable-year/902443002/