Alumni Spotlight - Thomas Booker

For this edition’s Alumni Spotlight, the News checked in with Thomas Booker IV ‘18, a defensive lineman on the Philadelphia Eagles and 2025 Super Bowl Champion. Booker graduated from Gilman in 2018 and then attended Stanford University, where he was a two-time captain as well as a two-time first-team Academic All-American. In the 2022 NFL Draft, Booker was selected in the fifth round by the Houston Texans. He played one season in Houston, recording fifteen tackles and five pressures. For the past three years, he has played for the Philadelphia Eagles, earning a Super Bowl ring this past February. 

In reflection of his Gilman tenure, Booker stated, “I think Gilman forces you to be excellent in all different dimensions, whether that’s academically, athletically, as a teammate, or as a friend. It does really create a brotherhood that is really all-encompassing of the experience.” At Gilman, Booker competed on the football, basketball, and track teams. His favorite athletic memory was winning the 100th Gilman v. McDonogh football game, saying, “It’s just something about winning a rivalry game, it just hits.” Academically, Booker specifically remembered writing his Artifact Paper in which he had to connect three artifacts in a research paper that reflected the pieces of chosen art. He said, “It was probably one of the more involved research papers that I’ve ever written, I think it prepared me very well for college and just in general, being able to draw connections as a thinker.” 

When it came time to decide on a college, Booker explained that a big part of choosing Stanford was for the same reason he chose to come to Gilman. He said, “I didn’t have to choose between being excellent as an athlete or an academic…we played great football but it is also a top three university in the country” (Booker, himself, claimed it to be #1). He mentioned that this was a universal experience on the team, commenting, “You could talk to anybody in the locker room about whatever technique we were working on or whatever defensive scheme we were playing, but you could also talk about economics, and the markets, and the world in general from a socio-political standpoint…You had a bunch of like-minded individuals [who] wanted to do great things in a lot of different ways.” Another aspect Booker admired about Stanford is that the football team was not separated from the rest of the school. He claimed, “Stanford, at least in your freshman year, purposely puts you with a regular student, or at least someone not playing your exact sport, so you actually get to be involved and meshed in the entire campus life.”

In 2022, Booker was drafted by the Houston Texans. He said, “I was never a kid who dreamed of playing in the NFL, if anything I wanted to be a CEO of a tech company.” For him, it was more about being successful in every role he was given. He claimed, “I wanted to figure out ways at whatever level I was playing, whether that was middle school, making varsity and playing on varsity in high school, or even at the D1 level.” Throughout his time at Stanford, his focus was always to stay present. Instead of looking forward, he tried to focus every year on ways to get better as a player and “becoming the best college player that [he] could become.” He said, “It was my mantra to just focus on actual, measurable steps that I could take to become a better football player and letting the rest fall into place.”

After a successful rookie season with the Texans, Booker broke his hand during training camp of his second season. He was then cut by the Texans and immediately, within about twelve hours, signed to the Eagles’ practice squad, meaning he had to pick up his things and head to Philadelphia, where he would live in a hotel for the first couple of weeks.  

Since then, Booker has played three years with Philadelphia and has grown accustomed to the life of a player, an experience that was like being “a deer in headlights” during his first season. Booker mentioned that he likes to think to himself, “These are great players, but so am I, right? There’s a reason why I’m here. I’m not trying to distance myself from these great players, I can beat them.” He maintained this mentality for the Super Bowl, ensuring that he stayed present and trusted his preparation, but also relented that “it was a crazy feeling to be involved in that game, and it especially set in after.” Despite a four-touchdown lead at halftime, the squad remained locked in. Booker said, “When we were walking to the locker room nobody was smiling, there was no celebration because we knew that this is what we came here to do. This is the kind of offense and defense that we spent all season building.” After winning the championship, Booker described that it “felt amazing,” and he was proud of the team’s mentality from the outset of the season all the way to its closing. 

In terms of day-to-day life in the NFL, Booker mentioned that the amount of activity fluctuates depending on the time of year, similar to his experience in college. He said that in the season “you have high activity in your day-to-day, you know, time constraints and demands, because you’re spending a lot of time practicing, in the facility, doing meetings, recovering.” During the season, players are at the facility from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, following a rigorous practice and meeting schedule that is capped off with media time. On the contrary, when the offseason hits, “you have a wealth of free time to yourself,” according to Booker. He stated that it is important to create your own structure to ensure it is an enjoyable but productive time as a player and athlete. He also mentioned that the offseason is a good time to work on any outside business ventures that players are interested in. Still, Booker makes an effort to spend the first half of his day at the facility, using the resources for lifting, fieldwork, and time in the sauna. 

For Booker, the most challenging part of the league is the ultra-competitive environment. He said, “In the NFL, you’re at the top echelon of your craft…the league, it’s a business, you know, you can hear that and understand it, but until you actually experience it, you don’t know…there are guys that are coming in as undrafted free agents, and one day they are there, and the next their locker is being cleaned out.” To respond, he has learned the importance of compartmentalization. Booker said that you can not worry about your spot being taken, because this bleeds into performance. “I literally just focus on what’s in front of me and being present.” The most rewarding aspect of being a player, for Booker, is the brotherhood of the locker room. He claimed, “Sports are a microcosm of the real world, right? They teach you perseverance. They teach you teamwork…as a result, you form deep bonds all around you.” 

Booker concluded by saying that Gilman prepared him so well for college and for the league because it teaches students to be well-rounded individuals. “There’s a lot of Renaissance men that come from Gilman…there are so many different opportunities for engagement that Gilman pushes you towards—athletics, News, the honor council, Traveling Men. A lot of kids go to a high school where they don’t get a diversified experience. Gilman taught me how to create structure for myself, and I’m very thankful for it.”