After graduating in 2024, Bo Thompson came back to Guilford for one more year of football and family.
Bo, a third-generation Quaker, had his degree in hand, but came back to play football one more year to support his teammates. He's glad he did.
There was a moment on a sunny afternoon last fall, at the rough football season when Benjamin “Bo’ Thompson ’24 realized that everything around him – the competition, the practices, the camaraderie – might be coming to an end. It was possible his football career was over.
In the end, however, a burning desire to continue to play won out for the fifth-year senior.
Bo, who finished his degree in Exercise and Sport Science last spring, came back to Guilford this fall to complete his minor in Sports Management. The decision to return as a student meant he got one more season with his teammates and coaches with whom he has grown close since getting a taste of what the Guilford community is like as a high school recruit.
“For me, that was a moment that I was like, I can’t not play, I have to come back for my people,” Bo says, recalling that November day last fall at Bridgewater College. “The people here that I have met, grown with, the people who have come and gone. They are the best thing about Guilford College.”
A third generation Quaker, Bo’s grandfather, Blake Thompson ‘59, attended Guilford, as did his uncles, Leland Earl Thompson ’61 and Louis Carlton Thompson Jr., and his aunt Linda Ann Jones Thompson ’61. Now Bo looks to find success after graduation just as they did. He wants to pursue a career as a strength and conditioning coach. He has prepared for this right here on campus, taking advantage of the benefits of attending a small school by serving in an internship in the weight room with Guilford Strength and Conditioning Coach Matt Furlaneto de Oliveira.
“It is going to keep me around sports,” Bo said. “Sports have been in my life for 16 years now, playing football. So, for me that is the biggest part, is that I get to stay around athletics and help others get better… If I am able to help people get physically better, it increases their chances of being better on the field, on the court, and places like that.”
A multi-year starter for the Quakers in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), Bo has excelled on and off the field as a five-time All-Academic ODAC honoree, citing self-discipline as his key to success in the classroom.
“A lot of it just comes down to time management,” Bo said. “You really just have to figure out your schedule, and once you figure out your schedule it makes it 100-times easier.”
Bo admits that the time management has not been a strength of his for the entirety of his tenure as a Quaker, but is instead one of the many aspects in which he has grown.
“I think I have become more mature, found more humility,” Bo added. “I think of all the hardships… but with that you grow, the losses and the hardships make you stronger, and you understand things better… I understand what needs to be done to where I can effect change here in the younger guys (on the team).”