Thomas Samuel Turner III (October 1, 1978 – March 10, 2014) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

who played one season with the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He was drafted by the New England Patriots in the seventh round of the

2001 NFL Draft The 2001 NFL Draft was the 66th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible professional football players. The draft, which is officially referred to as the "NFL Player Selection Meeting," was held at the ...

. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

and attended Hillsboro High School in

Hillsboro, Ohio Hillsboro is a city in and the county seat of Highland County, Ohio, United States approximately 35 mi (56 km) west of Chillicothe, and 50 miles east of Cincinnati. The population was 6,605 at the 2010 census. History Hillsboro was p ...

. Turner died of cancer on March 10, 2014.

References

External links

Just Sports StatsNFL Draft Scout
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, T. J. 1978 births 2014 deaths Players of American football from Dayton, Ohio American football linebackers African-American players of American football Michigan State Spartans football players New England Patriots players Deaths from cancer in Ohio 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American sportspeople