The boy’s skin was black and blue.
His parents, Jamie and Chrissie Thatcher, frantically loaded him into their car and rushed him to Summerlin Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas on Oct. 12, 2014.
His big brother, four-star linebacker Christian Thatcher, could only watch in horror as the emergency room doctors pricked and prodded at his little brother with needles, while he awaited a devastating diagnosis that would soon shape the rest of his family’s future.
“As a family, those kinds of things make you very, very close. I guess it could be the other way, where it destroys the family,” Chrissie Thatcher told The Salt Lake Tribune. “With our family, I think that, once you’ve gone through something like that together, that’s a closeness that can’t be destroyed.”
Family has been a defining value that not only drives him off of the football field, but it’s helped shape Christian’s desires off it.
So when it came time to pick his college, his parents said it had to be Utah.
“We saw how much of a family this coaching staff was,” Jamie Thatcher told The Salt Lake Tribune.
‘Always been a family effort’
Christian sat alongside his parents at dinner, as they chopped it up with Utah graduate assistant Chase Murdock and linebackers coach Colton Swan during his official visit with the Utes on June 7.
Christian and his family had visited numerous campuses throughout his recruiting process, ate dinner with several coaching staffs and got to know several different programs while on the trail.
The four-star linebacker’s visit with the Utes felt different, however, and his family knew that immediately once Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham and his wife, Jamie Whittingham, strolled to the dinner table to meet their soon-to-be commit and other recruits.
“Everywhere they had their wives and their kids with them,” Jamie Thatcher said. “Whittingham would drive up on his motorcycle with his wife on the back, and he’d sit down to talk with families and talk to the players. That was really neat.”
Christian liked the stability of Utah’s coaching staff. He was also enthused with the intensity of the Utes’ practices. But, what sealed the deal was the culture of family and accountability built by Whittingham over the course of 20 seasons. After the visit, Christian phoned Swan to affirm his commitment, canceled his remaining campus tours and officially chose the Utes on June 16, becoming their first four-star commitment of the 2025 recruiting cycle.
“We feel that his personality, his style of play and everything fits well into Utah,” Chrissie said.
“The Utah program shared a lot of our family values, of working hard and and one of the things we really liked is how they develop their players. … I think it’s because they choose people who are smart and work hard, and that’s just kind of their mentality. I think Christian fits really well into that.”
Christian’s father played football at Southern Utah before becoming a physical education teacher and football coach. Chrissie, like Jamie, is also a teacher, so their schedules naturally align, meaning they can both attend their son’s games.
With all those factors, football and other sports became a natural part of Thatcher family culture.
Beyond that, it provided normalcy when tragedy struck.
“It is just the way of life for our family,” Chrissie said. ‘We’ve chosen to devote ourselves to it, but the biggest thing is he just loves football. He wants to go out there and play, but it has always been a family effort.”
‘A closeness that can’t be destroyed’
On the evening of Oct. 22, 2014, Christian’s parents were pulled into a room by a group of emergency room doctors.
Fear immediately struck the family, but that was just collateral damage for what was to come. Earlier that day, their son Thaddeus, only a first-grader then, had been rushed to the hospital.
After numerous tests, Thaddeus was officially diagnosed with Leukemia and was given a 60% chance to live. As a 7-year-old, he had the highest white blood cell count that had ever been seen at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center, according to Jamie.
The doctors told Thaddeus that he would, likely, never play football again, and the normal life he once had would cease to exist. This was devastating to his parents, older sister and Christian, who had to watch the once-energetic Thaddeus fight against the cancer, which about 23,670 people die from in the United States annually, according to a study from the American Cancer Society.
“Christian never missed a hospital stay,” Chrissie said. “Thaddeus was off and on chemotherapy for three and a half years, and Christian was with him for every single hospital stay, every clinic visit, every chemo he had.”
(Jamie and Chrissie Thatcher) Christian Thatcher, third from left, says he decided to commit to the University of Utah because the Utes program felt like family.
From that point on, Jamie and Chrissie tried to create a new normal. On Monday, following Thaddeus’s tragic diagnosis, Chrissie took Christian to his weekly hockey practice. Parents who were aware of the recent events, questioned why the pair were even there in the first place.
What seemed crazy to others was the family’s first step in fighting together.
“People may think that’s weird,” Chrissie said. “I know that when I showed up at hockey, everyone was like, ‘What are you doing here?’ But, Jamie and I committed early on that we were going to try to keep everyone’s normal as normal as possible. So, like, Christian played sports all through Thaddeus’ treatment. Thaddeus joined him as quickly as he could.”
For the next three years, Chrissie and Jamie took turns staying with Thaddeus at the hospital and taking Christian to football practice.
Through that struggle, Christian was able to take his parent’s commitment to creating normalcy and replicate it into his own life. He’s never missed a football practice. He plays in every game like it’s his last. He’s never let up in the classroom.
Simply put, his family says, his commitment is unwavering.
“He knows to be grateful for every game,” Chrissie said. “If a game doesn’t go well, or practice doesn’t go well, you go back to work the next day. So, I think he plays well as a football player, because he’s just happy for the opportunity, but he knows that nothing’s given and he has to work hard and enjoy every moment.”
In a way, football became an outlet Christian, his brother and their parents. It was a time of peace, joy and celebration, especially as Thaddeus slowly was able to participate in the sport once again.
Now Thaddeus also holds an offer from the Utes.
‘Old school, hard-nosed type of player’
When you watch Christian’s tape from his childhood, it’s clear to see why he chose to be a linebacker.
Using his then-lanky frame, he often laid out opposing 6-year-olds, a trend that continued into his middle school and high school career. His massive hits would often cause opposing parents to get angry at Jamie and Chrissie in the stands.
To them, Christian’s intensity and hard-hitting nature was out of their control. When they watched one of Utah’s spring practices, that same nature was on display.
“Christian’s an old school, hard-nosed type of player,” Jamie said. “Whittingham’s old school, and those are the ways that he beats USC and programs like that, because they’re tough and they practice hard.”
Over the years, Utah has developed a family atmosphere off the field, which leads to more intensity on it. Since 2020, the Utes have had 11 defensive players selected in the NFL draft, with former linebacker Devin Lloyd topping the list after being selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the 27th pick in the 2022 NFL draft.
In 2023, finishing with an 8-5 record, the U. touted the 13th nationally ranked total defense in the NCAA, allowing an average of 5.21 yards per play and just over 307 yards per game. Jamie believes that Christian will fit right in with their tough-minded defensive culture, especially as the Utes enter the Big 12.
“You have to be pretty sharp in Utah’s defense,” Jamie said. “Christian is that, and they’re going to get everything out of him.”
As Christian mingled with the coaches and players during his official visit, Jamie and Chrissie couldn’t help but feel joy. He could be found smiling during a bowling match, playing carnival games with the other recruits and, most of all, meeting with Whittingham.
For Jamie, it felt like the perfect merger between old school football and their own family culture.
“It’s everything you really want,” Jamie said. “It’s great football. They’re great coaches. It’s great people. … That’s all we needed to know it was the right fit.”
Flash forward to today, it’s what made Christian’s commitment to Utah so easy. The same traits — dedication, perseverance and a hint of ruthlessness — he grew up loving and committing to in his own family presented itself with the Utes.
“It’s kind of one of those things where I think for a lot of families, sports are ingrained into lots of families, culture in America and around the world,” Jamie said.
Chrissie shared a similar sentiment.
“I think football being kind of the family hobby helps, because Jamie and I don’t miss a practice or a game,” she said. “The whole family participates in football together.”
Now, as Christian embarks on his final year of high school football, where he’ll play alongside his brother on the Aggies, Jamie has dreams of his two sons potentially playing together at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The Thatchers are also legal guardians to Damani Warren, a 2027 recruit, and he also has an offer from the Utes.
“In a perfect world,” Jamie said, “it would be wonderful if all three boys could end up at the same place.”
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