The definition of Zach Thomas.(South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

FORT LAUDERDALE

Early Saturday morning and there's a hard rain falling in the Panhandle.

"Can you hear it on the roof?" Steve Thomas asks while sitting on his porch in Pampa, Texas. The raindrops hit firm and loud. The wind is expected to kick up later this afternoon and it will cut right through this town.

"And, man, the wind really blows," Zach Thomas says. "There'll be dirt blowing because of the plowing and farming. Dust storms. You can't smile too much or you'll get dirt in your teeth."

And just then Zach Thomas smiles.

He's a thousand miles away at the Dolphins' training facility but right there on the porch with his father. He's running 40-yard sprints in the backyard and playing baseball in nearby White Deer. He's driving that `75 Monte Carlo. You know, the one the tires never stayed on because the lug nuts were stripped?

"I can't tell you how fortunate I was growing up," says the heart of the Dolphins' defense. "I mean, man, I was happy. I grew up in a good environment. You know, my father ..."

Zach Thomas shakes his head.

"Man, he overcame a lot of things."

Sitting on that porch in Pampa, Steve Thomas tells of growing up on a farm dirt poor, the son of alcoholic parents who committed suicide 10 years apart. A boy who practically raised a family himself. A self-made oil man who felt so blessed later in life that he would construct a 19-story, 2{ million-pound steel cross in the middle of this flat, dusty prairie.

The steel structure, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in nearby Groom, is the largest such structure in the Western Hemisphere and is visited daily by 1,000 weary travelers and tourists. It is, Steve Thomas says, a way to "leave an impression on people."

But the greatest impression he's ever left is on his children, by simply giving them what he never had growing up. Stability, fun, a chance to excel at the games they loved.

"You don't see it when you're a kid, but when you grow up you begin to …