Former Reseda High Star Fails to Keep Job as Starting Point Guard at Cal State Fullerton : Jackson Lost in the Shadow of Leon Wood

Eugene Jackson’s dreams of filling Leon Wood’s shoes at Cal State Fullerton have been put on the back shelf for at least a year.

After starting the first nine games for the Titans, Jackson has been benched for not playing aggressively, and replaced by junior Kevin Henderson.

Henderson appears to be up to the job. Last week, he scored 29 points against San Jose State, 26 points against Utah State--and was named PCAA Player of the Week. That leaves Jackson little hope of regaining the starting role.

Jackson, an 18-year-old from Reseda High School, was recruited by Titan Coach George McQuarn to take over the position that had been played so masterfully the three previous seasons by Wood.

By obliterating the Titan record book, winning All-American honors, playing on the 1984 Olympic basketball team and getting drafted in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers, Wood guaranteed that his achievements would be hard to match.

McQuarn shifted Henderson from the off-guard position after deciding that Jackson needed more time to adjust to the substantial differences between high school and major college competition. Jackson admitted the move is a good one.

“I’ve been a bit tentative,” the slender freshman said. “I’m not playing like I did in high school. Right now I’m comfortable and don’t mind coming off the bench at all. I’m learning from Kevin how to push the ball up court real quick and hit the right person at the right time.”

While McQuarn may believe that Jackson can learn more at this stage by watching the more experienced Henderson from the bench, his first year of college competition has had its moments.

Against a solid Pepperdine team, Jackson scored 11 points and had nine assists to help spark an 81-75 Titan win.

Going into tonight’s PCAA showdown with arch-rival UC Irvine, Jackson still leads the team in assists with 46, is fourth in minutes played, averages four points per game and has made the fewest turnovers. Ironically, the low number of turnovers may have cost him the starting job.

“He doesn’t want to make mistakes and, as a consequence, he has a tendency to play it safe,” McQuarn explained. “After the first nine games, he had the fewest turnovers of any regular in spite of the fact he handled the ball most of the time. He has to take more authority and responsibility out there.”

Certainly, McQuarn is not about to write him off.

“Any kid out of high school will have a difficult time adjusting to the level of play in Division I,” he said. “The point guard in our program is quite difficult to play. He has to be like a quarterback in football or a coach on the floor.”

“In high school, when I penetrated, the forwards were only 6-3 and 6-4,” Jackson said. “Now they’re 6-8 and 6-9. In high school I was a lot quicker than my opponents. Now the guards are real quick and that’s been my biggest adjustment.”

In spite of the built-in difficulties, McQuarn thinks Jackson has adapted just fine.

“Eugene has made the transition easier than any other freshman (this year),” he said. “He has quite a bit of potential. He’s a good defensive player and extremely unselfish on the offensive end of the floor. He has a great attitude offensively.”

Said Jackson: “The biggest joy I get out of a game is if I can get a good pass to the open man for a slam dunk. That really makes me happy.”

“He’s a great open-court player,” said his high school coach, Bill Hughes, who is now head basketball coach at Pierce College.

At Reseda, Hughes had plenty of opportunity to see the real Eugene Jackson in action as he led his team to two consecutive City 3-A championships and was named City 3-A Player of the Year his senior season.

Jackson was bused to the San Fernando Valley for six years from his home in Watts. He attended Sepulveda Junior High School, then Reseda High School.

“When I first met Eugene Jackson he was about six feet tall and skinny as a rail, maybe about 125 or 130 pounds,” Hughes said. “In 10th grade he came up to me at practice one day and said he wanted to play varsity. I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ I watched him work out, and he was the best player in the gym.”

Some of the seniors resented the brash newcomer.

“I started him out with the JV’s, but Eugene dominated so I brought him up to the varsity,” Hughes said. “It created some problems when I started him and some of the seniors got upset. After starting Eugene, we lost two in a row, so I brought him off the bench, especially when we were being pressed. We went 12-10, but I should have started him on the varsity right from the beginning.”

Jackson recalled some of the problems of his first varsity year.

“We had some controversy my sophomore year,” he said. “Certain guys were upset because I was playing. In college that don’t even happen.”

As a junior, Jackson’s prowess on the court was hard to deny. He ran the offense and shared team scoring honors with David Banks, averaging 13.6 points per game. Reseda went 24-1 en route to the 3-A title. “We were as good a city team that’s been around,” Hughes recalled.

Lacking the scoring balance of the previous year, Jackson had to assume more of the scoring load in his senior year on the way to a 23-4 record. Jackson averaged 26.9 points per game, just two-tenths of a point behind City scoring champion John Williams of Crenshaw. While Williams was vigorously pursued by more than 100 universities and colleges, however, Jackson received fewer than a dozen visits from recruiters.

That was because he had already been signed, sealed and delivered by McQuarn, who had taken advantage of a new NCAA rule allowing the signing of letters of intent by high school players before their final season.

“I became interested in him when I saw him play the summer before his senior year at the Superstar Camp in Santa Barbara, the high school summer leagues and the Las Vegas Invitational Tournament,” McQuarn said. “We needed a point guard and I knew he had the skills.”

Signing early is a decision Jackson does not regret.

“Recruiting is a big hassle,” Jackson said. “With all the college coaches calling, it gets to be a big problem and that’s the main reason I signed early. A lot of people didn’t want me to sign early at all, but I think I made the right decision. I couldn’t have picked a better time for Cal State Fullerton. They needed a point guard.”

Oregon State, Washington, Idaho, Pepperdine and University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also expressed interest in Jackson. UCLA never did not.

“UCLA never contacted me, but I didn’t like their style,” Jackson said. “Teams in the Pac-10 play a lot of zone. The only team that doesn’t is Oregon State. Oregon State recruited me but I didn’t want to leave Southern California at all. My No. 2 choice was Pepperdine.”

Hughes, not surprisingly, is bullish on Jackson’s future.

“He’s going to get better and better, a pure point guard,” Hughes said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he breaks some of Leon’s records. He’s deceptively quick and has long arms. His biggest weakness is he needs more upper body strength. He has a 15- to 16-foot shooting range and he needs to improve his range.”

Jackson carries only 165 pounds on his 6-3 frame, but McQuarn says he needs mental maturity as well.

“His problem is his personality,” McQuarn stated. “He’s not assertive enough. He’s playing with experienced people, and he’s afraid to assert himself and run things out on the court.”

Does McQuarn secretly hope Jackson will develop into another Leon Wood?

“We recruited Eugene as a point guard, but, as a coach, I never expected him to replace Leon,” he replied. “Leon had to become a scorer last season. I got Eugene because I thought he would complement the players coming back and the new kids.”

McQuarn, however, does note that Wood’s transition to point guard was anything but smooth.

“Leon played off-guard his freshman year at Arizona and in high school was a pure scorer,” he recalls. “And, after redshirting a year, he struggled through December and the first part of his sophomore year until he finally started to adapt.”

While a junior and senior in high school, Jackson was invited to watch Wood orchestrate the Fullerton offense. He witnessed some of the point guard’s virtuoso performances.

“I didn’t pay any attention to the thought of replacing Leon until I came to Cal State Fullerton and realized I was the next point guard,” Jackson said. “Everyone was used to him making the spectacular plays. I think it’s a challenge. Leon was probably the best point guard in the nation.”

Does Jackson think he’ll be another Leon Wood?

“I’m not trying to be like him,” he replied. “I’m trying to be myself. I’m here to contribute to the team. I think I’ll earn respect as a player in my own way, maybe not this year but in the years to come.”