Alonzo "Skip" Thomas, a.k.a. "Dr. Death", (February 7, 1950 – July 24, 2011) was an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 cornerback

Cornerback

A cornerback is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in American and Canadian football. Cornerbacks cover receivers, to defend against pass offenses and make tackles. Other members of the defensive backfield include the safeties and occasionally linebackers. The cornerback position...

 who played in the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

.

College career

Skip was awarded a scholarship to play football at Arizona Western Junior College. Then,Thomas played college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

.

Professional career

Thomas played for the Oakland Raiders

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 his entire professional career between 1972 and 1977. He had back-to-back six-interception

Interception (football)

An interception, intercept or pick is a move in many forms of football, including Canadian and American football, as well as rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football and Gaelic football, which involves a pass, either by foot or hand, being caught by an opposition player, who usually...

 seasons in 1974 and 1975. Although it is commonly believed that his fierce tackling

Tackle (football move)

Most forms of football have a move known as a tackle. The primary purposes of tackling is to disposses an opponent of the ball, to stop the player from gaining ground towards goal or to stop them from carrying out what they intend....

 got him the nickname "Doctor Death,"

Doctor Death (comics)

Doctor Death is a fictional character, a comic book mad scientist and supervillain appearing in publications by DC Comics. The character was created by either Gardner Fox or Bob Kane as an enemy of the superhero Batman, and first appeared in Detective Comics #29, released July 1939...

the truth is that someone who first met him thought that he looked like the cartoon character "Dr. Death," and the monicker stuck.