Bo Jackson

[HOU_AU_90 0]

There has never been a better Athlete! WDE!

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/special1/articl...917105509990002

Jackson's Amazing Legend Began at Early Age

Neighborhood Enforcer Became Incredible Athlete

By JOHN WIEBUSCH, AOL

Sports Commentary

He was here and then gone, a flame burned out too quickly but a flame that burned so brightly in those days that those who were witnesses never will forget it.

Bo Jackson always was the stuff of myth and legend, of folk songs and tall tales, a combination of John Henry and Paul Bunyan set down amid mere mortals.

So come gather round children and listen pray tell to truth that is stranger than fiction...

The Brick

His real name was Vincent but they called the eighth of Bebe Jackson’s 10 children "Bo" because he could be as wild and crazy as a boar hog. "I was the enforcer - the John Gotti - of my neighborhood," he says.

When Bo was nine, a kid from down the block in Bessemer, Ala., did something bad to Bo, then ran around the house to escape Bo's wrath. Bo picked up a brick and threw it with accuracy and force over the fence and the elm tree and two-story house. The trajectory was perfect and the brick and the fleeing boy’s head met a bloody match on the other side of the house.

The wound was superficial. The legend began that summer afternoon ("Lordy, he threw that brick 100 yards and hit a blind, moving target!"), even though the legend got a thrashing from Bebe Jackson. "Mama was my personal enforcer," Bo says.

The Natural

He hated lifting weights so he never did. That body - that slab on slab of muscle and still more muscle - was built through push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups.

Football and baseball were at the top of his play list but there was no hill he wouldn’t try to climb, no mountain he couldn’t conquer if he put his mind and body to it.

He ran track in high school, a fine idea for someone who could run 100 meters in 10.39 seconds (amazing for a human being of any size, flabbergasting for someone who weighed more than 220).

Someone suggested he try the decathlon, but he had never pole vaulted or thrown the discus. He taught himself to do both things in one day. A week later, he won the Alabama schoolboy decathlon with a record point total. He also set a record in winning the 100 meters.

The College

As it often does for Alabama kids, it came down to a choice between Auburn and Alabama, and the assistant coach from the latter made up Bo Jackson’s mind when he pointed out Auburn’s decade-long futility against Alabama and said, "If you go there, you’ll never beat 'Bama." As a freshman in 1982, Jackson scored the game-winning touchdown to beat Alabama.

In four years at Auburn, he averaged 6.6 yards per carry. In his last college game, against Alabama, he ignored two cracked ribs to run for 142 yards and score two touchdowns. He had 1,786 yards in his senior season and his reward was the 1985 Heisman Trophy.

He also ran track his first two years at Auburn, qualifying for the NCAA sprint finals both times. He stood out at the starting line. And, multi-jocking in the spring, he went from track to baseball to spring football practice (with occasional academics included).

In his last season of college baseball, he batted .401, with 17 home runs and 43 runs batted in.

The Drafts

In 1982, the New York Yankees, sensing unlimited potential, had drafted Bo Jackson. But Bo and his Mama felt the chance to become the first family member to go to college was too compelling.

Four years later, the Kansas City Royals drafted Jackson. The Heisman on his mantle, Jackson signed a contract with the Royals. Undeterred, a few weeks later, Tampa Bay made Jackson the No. 1 selection of the 1986 NFL Draft. Jackson turned his back on the sad-sack Bucs, the first No. l draft choice in a half-century not to sign an NFL contract.

Jackson spent most of the ’86 baseball season in the minor leagues, joining the Royals in September. He would be a major leaguer for the rest of his career.

In April 1987, having not signed with Tampa Bay, Jackson's name went back into the NFL talent pool. And Al Davis, seeing a diamond in the rough if ever there was one, put the Raiders' brand on Jackson in the seventh round.

This time Jackson signed an NFL contract. He would join the Los Angeles Raiders as soon as the Royals' season ended, without benefit of training camp or any football workouts, having not played the sport for 21 months. He would continue to play baseball from spring training to final game. "Playing football will be my hobby," he said, and he was serious.

The Measurements I

His chest measured 48 inches, his waist 31. His powerful thighs were 26 inches. He was 6-foot-1 1/2, 222 to 235 pounds.

Formidable numbers all. And yet anyone who knew him, who played with or against him, who stood in awe of him, will tell you that his most striking physical characteristics were his Popeye arms, which looked like most well-built men’s legs.

And all of it without lifting weights.

The Measurements II

George Brett played with Bo Jackson the last month of the '86 baseball season and all of Jackson's next four seasons in Kansas City. Brett is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and he speaks with considerable authority when he says, "I never missed a Bo Jackson at-bat. Nobody hit them longer or higher or ones that left you saying to yourself, 'Oh... my... God!'"

From 1987-1990, Jackson hit a tape-measure home run every 16 at-bats, and in 1989, when he hit 32 home runs and drove in 105 runs, he was a starter for the American League All-Stars. In his first time up in the showcase game, he hit - what else? - a prodigious home run to center field. He was named the game's Most Valuable Player.

His throws to home and third base also left grown men muttering. Miss his howitzer throw and ask, "Who was the relay man?" To which the reply would be, "There was no relay man."

The Hobbyist

Not knowing what to expect and not wanting to risk injury to their unique specimen, the Raiders began The Bo Jackson Experiment cautiously. In seven games in 1987, they handed him the football 81 times. He averaged 6.8 yards a carry. Some hobby.

And so a Fantasyland star was born in Los Angeles in the autumns... and nurtured on the midwestern prairies in the summers.

In the fall of 1988 (cue the music), Bo Jackson began myth making that seemed from a higher league.

Five weeks after tossing aside his baseball uniform, he shredded the Seattle Seahawks for a record Monday Night Football rushing performance of 221 yards. Included in that total was a 91-yard touchdown run. Another run was the bug-on-the-windshield blast through - almost literally - Seattle linebacker Brian Bosworth. The Boz had been trash-talking Jackson before the game, not having heard, obviously, about this John Gotti grown up.

A couple weeks later, the Raiders were in New Orleans to play the Saints in the Superdome. The building had opened in 1975 and until that time (or since), no one had thrown a ball off the scoreboard that is suspended from the ceiling. Bo Jackson, a running back, picked up a football and casually threw it off the scoreboard on his first try.

In 1989, Bo Jackson got another leg up on the NFL, one he also maintains to this day. He scored on a 92-yard run against Cincinnati, making him the only man in pro football history to have two career runs of 90 or more yards.

In 1990, he started another exclusive Club of One when he was voted to play for the AFC team in the Pro Bowl. In ’89, he had been voted to baseball’s All-Game. No one ever had made that double play before.

The Adman

Bo Jackson was at the forefront of two of the most memorable - and lasting - ad campaigns of all time. Nike’s "Just Do It" and "Bo Knows," slogans practically embedded in the American consciousness, both debuted in 1988.

The most famous of many spots came in 1990. Bo is presented as The Man. Football’s Jim Everett says, "Bo knows football," Baseball’s Kirk Gibson says, "Bo knows baseball." Basketball’s Michael Jordan says, "Bo knows basketball." Hockey’s Wayne Gretzky comes skating up and simply says, "No!" Jackson then jams very badly with rock legend Bo Diddley, who stops and says, "Bo, you don’t know Diddley!"

The Comeback

Bo Jackson didn’t play in the Pro Bowl after the 1990 season. A routine run, a routine tackle and a seemingly routine fall in a divisional playoff game against Cincinnati had a not-so-routine consequence: Jackson’s left hip was dislocated. He relocated it himself but the pain was unbelievable.

No one knew then, but he never would play football again. In 515 carries over 38 late-season games in four years, he averaged 5.41 yards (among running backs with the requisite number of attempts, Jim Brown has the highest average of all time, 5.22).

No one knew then, too, but the dislocated hip and the complications that followed sapped Jackson's speed. He would play baseball again, in a limited role (71 at-bats) for the Chicago White Sox in 1991 and then again in 1993, remarkably after hip replacement surgery in 1992.

Blood supply had been cut off to the area around Jackson’s left hip socket, causing deterioration of the cartilage and bone, a condition known as avascular necrosis.

Doctors were concerned that he would walk normally. Bo Jackson was determined he would play baseball again, and he came back to the game in goose bumps fashion: He hit a home run in his first swing in 19 months in April 1993.

He carried on through 1993 with the White Sox, then in 1994 with the California Angels, now a study in courage and a pacesetter yet again. No one ever had played major league baseball with an artificial hip. "I actually slid a few times on it," he says. "It didn’t make my doctors happy, but it didn’t hurt me, either."

He hit a total of 29 home runs in 1993-94 - stole one base, too - and then, at 32, took his magic body out of the games.

The Good Life

He has no regrets. None. Some people think he should have picked one sport and stayed with it. He says he's lucky to have done it all. Some people decry the injury he suffered in football. He says it could have happened sliding into third base.

"Life is about ifs," he says. "It would be nice to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame or the Pro Football Hall of Fame [he is in the College Football Hall of Fame], but it would be nice to win the Powerball lotto, too."

A rich man in many ways, he lives in suburban Chicago, in a bucolic setting on rolling hills by the Des Plaines River, with his wife, Linda, and their three teenage children - Garrett, 18, Nicholas, 16, and Morgan, 14.

Bebe Jackson died in 1992, three weeks after Bo’s first hip surgery (he has had two ensuing operations on the hip), and in 1995 Bo completed his promise to his Mama when he finished his degree in human sciences from Auburn.

He owns or co-owns successful meat and food processing and distribution companies.

Bo Jackson’s life is no longer an adrenaline rush, no longer the stuff of folk songs.

But he was fortunate once. He got to sing his song.

And lucky us, of course: We got to watch and listen.

[JxnTider 0]

God, i miss watching him play! Never got to watch him at AU, but i grew up idolizing him when he was with Oakland. My dad brought me up an Oakland Raiders fan from the time i was in diapers. Of course, i was a huge Bo fan. I wanted nothing more than to be just like him when i was younger. It was too bad when his career got cut short. What a tragedy...

[AUesquire 1]

I wanted to be like Bo too but I had a couple of obstacles in my way.

I was slow, white, overweight, not athletically gifted, not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.....to name a few.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

I wanted to be like Bo too but I had a couple of obstacles in my way.

I was slow, white, overweight, not athletically gifted, not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.....to name a few.

194562[/snapback]

Dang.....sounds like I need a new lawyer

[Bottomfeeder 244]

To shake his hand is like grabbing a brick. No joke. The man would not squeeze hard at all, he didn't need to. It was like a brick. I met him near Willowbrook, Illinois at the speedway station at 91st and Kingery Highway (Route 83). He was filling up his black Mercedes Benz and I had to chat. What a great man to met a converse with. I got his autograph and shook his hand. What a day.

On the Northeast corner of the intersection there is a Speedway station

[aumoore 0]

No offense to Cadilliac Williams but he pales in comparison to Jackson. Bo made many a good football player look like a boy. I remember watching him break off a long run of about 70 yards against Gerogia Tech for the winning score. I swear you could hear his footsteps as he raced down the sideline.

Hershal was special as well but I say that Bo was slightly better.

Think of the yards he would have gotten if he had played last year for Auburn. Pat Dye ran the wishbone and Bo probably got 40% of the carries if that many.

[tgr4lfe 220]

There is no doubt in my mind that Bo is the best athlete to ever have walked the earth. I got to watch him play a couple of years at AU, I was but 10 to 12 years old, and didn't realize until I was older how special it was to see him play. I remember him busting a long run against Cincinnati in a 60-0 shutout. And I of course remember the run up the wall in the major leagues. I know Michael Jordan was a two sport star, but Jordan excelled only in basketball. Bo could have played any sport he wanted. Just like learning the pole vault and shot put in one day. I always watched him play, no matter if it was a football game or baseball. I remember watching when he flattened the Boz!!!! I cried the day I found out his football career was over. That was a bad day.

[Tigermike 3,053]

I remember watching him break off a long run of about 70 yards against Gerogia Tech for the winning score.  I swear you could hear his footsteps as he raced down the sideline. 

194607[/snapback]

I was at that game. Oh what a memory. We were sitting in the middle of a sea of GT fans. It was a hard fought game, but when Bo made that run the GT fans knew the fat lady was singing!

[Draven 0]

Just thinking about Bo getting a handoff busting through the line shedding a tackle and the foot race. “Handoff to Jackson who takes it off the left side, he through one tackle now two, ITS OVER HE IS GONE BYEBYE BO!” Touchdown Auburn!

Ah its still leaves goose bumps to this day, he was a man among boys there will never be another like him. It was a tragedy what happened, he was one of the greats in the pros what little time he was with the raiders, imagine what he would have done with a 10-year career.

[TexasTiger 13,006]

No offense to Cadilliac Williams but he pales in comparison to Jackson.  Bo made many a good football player look like a boy.  I remember watching him break off a long run of about 70 yards against Gerogia Tech for the winning score.  I swear you could hear his footsteps as he raced down the sideline. 

Hershal was special as well but I say that Bo was slightly better. 

Think of the yards he would have gotten if he had played last year for Auburn.  Pat Dye ran the wishbone and Bo probably got 40% of the carries if that many.

194607[/snapback]

Slightly better? No, he was definitely better.

[saniflush 0]

God, i miss watching him play!  Never got to watch him at AU, but i grew up idolizing him when he was with Oakland.  My dad brought me up an Oakland Raiders fan from the time i was in diapers.  Of course, i was a huge Bo fan.  I wanted nothing more than to be just like him when i was younger.  It was too bad when his career got cut short.  What a tragedy...

194560[/snapback]

While you were cheering for Bo did your father tell you where he went to college or did he keep that handy piece of information to himself?

[CarolinaTiger 0]

cracked ribs in the 85 iron bowl? among the many memories of that game, one is of Bo standing on the bench behind the players on the auburn sideline, late in the 4th quarter, waving a towel over his head to rally the crowd.... what a 4th quarter...only to be ruined by van tiffen....

ct

[WarTim 3,457]

I was @ the Sou Miss game when Bo was a freshman and got his first carries. It was obvious to all in attendance that HE was something SPECIAL. I will forever treasure the memories that #34 supplied.

[Shug2003 1]

I was there for the break-out game against Wake Forest. Nobody knew about him before that----after that, everybody did. He was poetry in motion and I mean Faaaaaaaaaast speed. In my 62 years, I've seen several of them but I can truthfully say I have never seen another one as good as him...bar NONE and he was ours! Also, don't forget, IMO he was as important to Auburn in terms of turning the program around as was Pat Dye. We owe both of them quite a lot......War Damn Eagle!

[Tiger in Spain 0]

I wanted to be like Bo too but I had a couple of obstacles in my way.

I was slow, white, overweight, not athletically gifted, not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.....to name a few.

194562[/snapback]

Man, you guys have got to stop! I inhaled about half of a large gulp of water reading this!