BO JACKSON : He’s an Enigma Wrapped in the Body of an Extraordinarily Talented Athlete

The rifle looks small in Bo Jackson’s hands, as if it might be one of those plastic, dime-store models that cackles and coughs, rat-tat-tat , when you pull the trigger.

He cradles the weapon and explains how, with its state-of-the-art scope, the rifle can send a three-inch bullet into the neck or behind the front shoulder of a deer and out the other side before the animal can sense pain. So swift and efficient is the bullet’s flight that the deer will move onward until, suddenly, there is no will to take another step.

“Thinks he’s been stung,” Jackson says.

Strange, but even in the solitude of the Alabama forests, where Jackson finds freedom from the rigors of notoriety, his need to perplex, deer included, remains strong. Talk about marching to the beat of a different drummer! Auburn University’s Bo Jackson, the man most likely to succeed in next year’s football and baseball draft, has his own percussion section.

“The thing I do best is keep people guessing,” he says proudly.

This is the guy who, if he had his druthers, would almost rather bag his first trophy buck than his first trophy Heisman. “There’s no pressure on you,” he says of his hunting expeditions. “None whatsoever. You don’t have to take criticism and it’s something you did. Nobody is out there helping you. If you screw up, it’s your problem. And if you do good, only you can take credit for it.”

This is the guy who practices and readies himself for a game at his own pace. No one is allowed to intercede, by order of Auburn’s Coach Pat Dye, who knows a meal ticket when he sees one.

It wasn’t always like that. During Jackson’s freshman season, the season he nearly quit school, an assistant coach, Bud Casey, grew impatient with Jackson during a workout. “Like a mad dog,” Jackson says of Casey’s on-field demeanor.

Now most freshmen, duly intimidated and embarrassed, would look for the nearest rock to crawl under when chastised in public. Not the rebel Jackson.

“At that point in time, it was about 95 degrees and we were in full pads,” Jackson says. “We had gone 10 straight plays. I stood there to pull up my pants because my belt had come loose. I stood there and I was doing my pants when he yanked on me. I said, and I didn’t mean nothing by what I said, nothing prejudice or racial or nothing like that, but I said, ‘As long as you are white, don’t you ever grab me again.’ ”

Jackson added something about “if you value your life” to the conversation and that was that. Casey, by the way, now doesn’t lay a hand on Jackson unless it’s to pat him on the back.

The oddities don’t stop there. Questioned once about his choice in funeral arrangements, Jackson said he’d prefer cremation and a sprinkling at sea. If that can’t be done, Jackson said, he’d request a simple tombstone reading:

VINCENT JACKSON

?

While he is still with us, though, Jackson makes the most of his day by intriguing the world of sport and forcing the overtime use of question marks. Does he deserve the Heisman Trophy? Will he choose the NFL or professional baseball? Why this desire to confound?

Jackson, by design, offers few clues. Somewhere, somehow, he decided that he was his own best friend and that no one, except maybe family, would be allowed to penetrate the shield. You think he is quick and uncatchable on a football field? Try learning his career intentions. Or why the Heisman chase has left him apparently weary and bored.

“I don’t like people knowing my every move,” he says. “I like to keep people guessing, no matter what the situation is. I’ve always done that.”

He is rated by most NFL and major league baseball franchises as the No. 1 prospect in each sport.

Larry Himes, director of scouting and player personnel for the California Angels, the team that drafted Jackson, said you could assemble the rosters of all 26 major league teams and no player would be faster or stronger.

Dave Hanner, a scout for the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, recently told Dye that Jackson was rated a 10. “He’s the highest-rated pro prospect that ever came out,” Hanner said.

Still, Jackson has never attended a professional football or baseball game, nor does he want to. If he watches a football game on television, Jackson prefers the Chicago Bears--not because of the extraordinary Walter Payton, but because of the surprising William Perry. His other choice is San Diego Charger running back Lionel James, the diminutive Auburn alumnus.

“I idolize those two people because they’re going against all odds and they’re winning,” he says.

Jackson knows about such things. In his 22 years, he has been on intimate terms with both hardship and juvenile delinquency. As a youngster, he specialized in shoplifting, bullying and other antisocial behavior.

Jackson’s mother once told him he’d be wearing prison stripes before his 21st birthday if he didn’t change his ways. Jackson, the eighth of 10 children, listened and altered his life style. By then, he had spent considerable time terrorizing the other children in his McCalla, Ala., neighborhood, a suburb of Birmingham. While in elementary school, Jackson regularly took lunch money from older students and made straight A’s in the subject of fisticuffs. His family, saying that his personality resembled a wild boar, nicknamed him ‘Boar.’ Later, he was simply, ‘Bo.’

Jackson would be threatened with reform school after heaving rocks at a Baptist minister’s pen of pigs. He discovered marijuana as a high school freshman and the pigskin soon thereafter.

If his athletic career ended today, Jackson says he would buy some land in the woods and build a youth center and work with kids. “I wouldn’t want them to live the childhood I lived,” he says. “I would want to be the person to get them off the wrong track.”

Jackson also has experienced the joy of victory and learned to understand that, in a way, he is unlike most athletes and because of it, unlike most people.

Jackson’s special talent forces a disciplinarian-coach to make an unlikely exception; it demands the attention of baseball and football general managers, who are considering bending their financial rules; it causes contradictions in a man who cherishes his privacy but contends that he knows what the system can offer and how best to exploit it.

Take his pending choice between football and baseball. Jackson has said he doesn’t have time to think about it. Or that he might try track “and give Carl Lewis a run for his money.” Or he might just put two slips of paper into a hat--one marked baseball, the other marked football-- and pick with his eyes closed.

“I’m not living for tomorrow,” he says. “I’m living for the present.”

Well, that might not be entirely true. Jackson allegedly has an insurance policy underwritten by Lloyd’s of London that offers financial protection in case of injury. Iowa quarterback Chuck Long, among others, also has availed himself of the company’s services. Jackson prefers not to discuss the matter, and Auburn coaches say they don’t know if the policy exists.

Jackson works hard at remaining vague. It’s what he does best. He says he won’t make a decision until the end of next spring’s college baseball season, which he plans to spend on Auburn’s team.

His baseball coach, Hal Baird, a former minor league player in the Kansas City Royal organization, said that Jackson could start immediately for a noncontending team in the majors.

“I believe Bo could play major league center field today,” he said. “He could run the bases and he could throw. The one thing I don’t think he’s ready to do is swing the bat against major league pitching, but I think he will. I don’t believe there’s any club whose 24th or 25th man could do any more for them than Bo could do right now.”

Said Dye: “Anybody that tells you he can’t play major league baseball is an idiot. They think Rickey Henderson is fast; they don’t know what speed is.”

Despite the appraisal, there are those in major league front offices who fully expect Jackson to become NFL property at spring’s end.

“I just feel very strongly that those (NFL) people will have him wrapped up,” Himes said. “They’ll have pads on him and a helmet on him and he’ll be driving a Rolls-Royce.”

It was Himes’ job to determine whether Jackson was interested in pursuing a baseball career. “I never did get that commitment that baseball was his primary sport,” Himes said.

Because of NCAA rules, Himes wasn’t allowed to discuss specific salaries and bonuses during his three telephone conversations with Jackson, but he said that Jackson would have been paid more than any other No. 1 pick in the amateur draft. The reported average signing bonus for a first-round baseball selection is about $100,000. Jackson’s bonus would have well exceeded that total, Himes said.

Even Howie Long, the opinionated defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Raiders, offered a comment concerning Jackson’s decision.

“I hear the guy hits like Reggie Jackson, that he fields well and naturally I believe he would steal a few bases,” Long said, apparently not quite sure why a decision is necessary. “From what I hear, he’s the second coming.

Added Long: “If I had it to do, I’d definitely play baseball.”

Jackson, when informed of the comments, cracks a small grin. “The next time you see Howie Long, tell him to come tell that to my face. I’ve got a bone to pick. Of course, I’m not going to tackle him barehanded.”

Jackson lovingly pats his rifle.

Though he won’t admit it, Jackson was designed for football. He is 6-foot-1, 222 pounds and has run, according to the Auburn athletic department, a 40-yard dash on grass in 4.22 seconds, about the time it takes to scratch a good itch. Former Olympic sprinter Ron Brown of the Rams, probably the fastest man in pro football, is credited with a 40 on grass at 4.28.

But Jackson isn’t just flash. There’s substance, too. You could walk a city block faster than you could circle his chest. His shoulders are a subdivision. People as big as he aren’t supposed to be that fast, a bit of news that further confounds those attempting to dissect Jackson.

“You look at Bo and you don’t realize how big he is until you get up close,” Dye said. “I was looking at him one day after a workout. We were on our way to Athens (for a game against Georgia). I let the team wear casual clothes, since we were riding over there on the bus. He had a sweat shirt on and shorts because he was icing down his leg. In the aisle we had some apples and when he bent down to get an apple, I told my wife, ‘Look at his dang back. His back is as broad as a dang bull.’

“You look at his arms, his hands,” Dye said. “He’s got those long sleek muscles, like those of a thoroughbred. You look at Herschel (Walker, the former Georgia All-American) and maybe he’s got a big-looking neck or big upper body from lifting weights. Bo’s not like that.

“You talk about a guy who is made perfectly to run a football!” Dye said.

Jackson constantly is compared to the legendary Walker. Same jersey number. Similar builds. Same conference. Walker, though, gained 5,239 yards during his career at Georgia. With one game left on Auburn’s schedule--Saturday against archrival Alabama at Birmingham--Jackson has gained 4,161 yards during his career, 1,644 of them this season.

Those totals might have been even more impressive had Jackson played complete games against Tennessee, Florida and East Carolina this season. He left those games with a leg injury, thus prompting questions about his durability, courage and desire.

After Florida’s victory over Auburn, a game in which Jackson carried the ball 16 times for 48 yards and no touchdowns before leaving in the second period, Gator linebacker Alonzo Johnson told John Adams of the Florida Times-Union Journal: “I had the feeling he’d do that if we played good defense. I knew if he got hurt, he would pull himself from the game.”

Jackson says he disregards the statements.

“The way I see it, I don’t have to prove nothing to nobody,” he says. “I know what my body is capable of withstanding. I know what I can do on and off the playing field. Anyway, as long as there is someone out there criticizing me, I know that I’m on someone’s mind.”

It almost has become fashionable to second-guess Jackson’s motives. Has a sure-fire pro career altered his priorities and thinking?

“If Bo’s priority was money, he wouldn’t be here,” said Wayne Hall, an Auburn assistant coach. “If he wanted money, he would have gone to the USFL. Or the Angels.”

Said teammate Tim Jessie of the doubts concerning Jackson’s playing health: “I thought it was sickening, really. I had a bruised thigh, too. To me, it’s pretty much like a broken leg. Your leg just doesn’t work.”

Added roommate and Auburn running back Tommie Agee: “He’s not a quitter. If he could go, he would play hurt.”

During his freshman season in 1982, an injury forced Jackson to miss a game. The next week against Mississippi State, Auburn trailed late in the fourth period. Dye asked Jackson if he could play. Jackson said he’d try. Eight carries, 59 yards and a touchdown later, Auburn had a victory. “Just ignited our football team,” Dye said.

Two years later, in the Kickoff Classic against Miami, Jackson injured an ankle late in the game, but stayed in the lineup.

“We get home and he can’t walk and he can’t practice,” Dye said. “He goes on crutches for the next week.

A game against Texas followed and Jackson, still bothered by the ankle injury, was tackled by defensive back Jerry Gray, now with the Rams, after a 53-yard gain. “If he would have been full speed, he would have never caught him,” Dye said.

A taped replay shows Jackson limping during his run against Texas. Gray slams Jackson to the ground and then watches Jackson get to his feet. Jackson uses his left hand to push himself up. His right shoulder is separated.

“I tried to snap it back in place, but it wouldn’t go,” says Jackson.

Dye said: “The trainer says, ‘Bo has hurt his shoulder, but I don’t think he can do any more damage to it.’ I send him back in the game, and he plays a half-quarter or so and he scores a touchdown with a separated shoulder. I just thought he had a bruised shoulder. I found out later in the locker room that he had a separated shoulder. I felt like an idiot.”

Jackson was told that his season was finished, although doctors said there was a slim possibility he could return in time to play in Auburn’s final two games. Jackson says he broke down and cried for only the second time of his life.

“I had so many hopes and it was all down the drain,” he says. “I guess it showed the public that I was made of flesh and blood, like everybody else.”

Jackson managed to return two weeks earlier than expected and helped lead Auburn to a Liberty Bowl victory over Arkansas.

“He’s never displayed anything but courage,” Dye said.

And in the Auburn press guide, under the category of most admired athlete, senior quarterback Pat Washington passed on the popular choices--Marcus Allen, O.J. Simpson, Dan Marino, etc.--and chose Jackson.

Jackson has visited Dye’s office to talk about his career options. The conversation was brief.

“I told him, ‘Bo, I don’t know what you’re going to do, but the only thing I would recommend is that you not go anywhere where they’re going to give you the ball 30-35-40 times a game,’ ” Dye said. “There ain’t no way you can do it. Look what they did to Earl Campbell.”

Said Howie Long: “For a running back, especially a guy like him, he would probably go to a sub-par team where he would probably take a hell of a beating for the first few years.”

No one knows that better than Jackson, who would prefer to have use of all his motor skills. Perhaps that’s why he continues to hide his intentions. John Elway used a similar method and it worked. But, according to Himes, “There’s no comparison between Elway and Bo Jackson.” Advantage, Jackson, he said.

Says Jackson: “The way I’m looking at it, if there’s someplace where I’d rather not go and play, I’ll always have baseball to fall back on. I’d say it’s the same thing as John Elway’s situation.”

Jackson is the first three-sport SEC letterman in more than 20 years. He hit a home run against Georgia last season that still may be traveling upward. Track coaches marveled at his explosiveness. Auburn’s football coaches merely nodded their heads, as if to say, ‘Ours, all ours.’

On occasion, Jackson has ventured into the Auburn weight room, reclined on the bench press and pumped 365 pounds, then 380 pounds, then 400 pounds. “Is that enough,” he asked the stunned Auburn strength coach.

“It’s a proven fact that he’s stronger than us,” said Jessie of Jackson’s infrequent visits to the weight room. “And we lift.”

Jackson, shortly after acquiring a bow, qualified easily for a local hunting club.

“On top of all that he’s a clean liver,” Dye said. “He loves kids, old folks and the handicapped. He likes to hunt and fish. He’s just an everyday type of guy.”

Rusty Deen, a resident counselor at the Auburn athletic dormitory, can recall only one time when Jackson created a disturbance. He threw water balloons at incoming freshmen football players and forced them to dance.

It was harmless stuff, a far cry from his mid-teens when destruction was the order of the day.

“And he’ll skip classes, like you and me did,” Deen said. “One thing, he doesn’t like school a lot because he thinks he knows more about people than the teachers teaching him.”

Jackson is about four quarters short of earning a degree in family and child development. He says he’ll finish his work “someday.”

According to Deen, Jackson already has profited from his four-year stay in college. “He always wanted to hide and not say anything,” Deen said. “He wouldn’t say two words unless spoken to.”

Now he speaks to local gatherings and talks to reporters almost daily. He is accessible and willing, though careful with his answers. In case he forgets, an assistant sports information director, Mike Hubbard, reminds Jackson of appointments and speaking engagements. Before a recent television interview, Hubbard whispered to Jackson, “A Tuscaloosa (Ala.) station. Keep that in mind.”

Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama. No use providing any unnecessary hate video. Predictably, Jackson was pleasant and neutral.

Soon, on Dec. 7, Jackson will learn if he has won the Heisman Trophy. Chuck Long of Iowa and Robbie Bosco, Brigham Young’s quarterback, appear to be the other leading candidates.

Walk around the Auburn campus and you often meet the ghost of Pat Sullivan, the War Eagle quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1971.

Enter the athletic department building and there is Sullivan’s trophy encased in a cage of glass. Outside Dye’s office is Sullivan’s jersey, since retired, and an oil painting of the Auburn legend. Thumb through the Auburn press guide and you see Sullivan’s face. Arrive for a meal at the athletic dorm cafeteria and again, there is a portrait of Sullivan.

Jackson says he pays little attention to the Sullivan legend and repeats his line about living for the present.

What does it mean?

If chosen as this year’s Heisman winner, Jackson will accept the award with pride and then, perhaps, forget about it. He’ll take his rifle or his bow and find his secluded spot in the woods. There he will worry about nothing except perhaps the trophy buck that eludes him. “I haven’t seen it,” he says. “But I’ve heard it.”

The same is true of Jackson. He is heard, but seldom truly seen.