Jackson May Start for Bruins : Flu Bug Could Give Him Another Chance

It’s been nearly two weeks since Craig Jackson came back to UCLA from his six-day leave of absence and assumed a new role on the team for which he used to start.

What actually is Jackson’s role?

“Undetermined,” Coach Walt Hazzard said.

So, Jackson, who was a starting forward for most of last season and all of this one until he bolted the team in late December because he was playing so poorly, just sits and waits for Hazzard to call on him.

The wait has covered three full games--a total that would have been four if Hazzard had not used Jackson for three minutes in a 20-point rout of Stanford. But Jackson is getting a little anxious about playing again and thinks he has served his sentence.

“I deserved it,” Jackson said. “If I was a coach and a player left for six days, he definitely wouldn’t be starting when he came back, either. But I just wish I could get into a game now.”

That time could come today when the Bruins play Arizona. Jackson may get his chance to play again, at least for a while, because UCLA is probably going to be short-handed due to the flu.

Reggie Miller, Dave Immel, Greg Foster and Kevin Walker are all sick, which might mean that if Miller cannot start, then either freshman Trevor Wilson or Jackson would go in Miller’s place.

“We’re waiting to see who’s going to drop next,” Hazzard said.

It seems that for Jackson to play, someone in front of him must be sick first. Jackson himself was sick emotionally for a time, and that’s why he bolted the team and went home to Denver.

“I had to go and take stock of my career at UCLA,” Jackson said. “I was getting clobbered by players who I thought didn’t have nearly as much ability as me. It was tearing me up inside.

“After we played at Washington, I called my parents and told them I was ready to quit, but they talked me out of it.”

Jackson reached his low after the Bruins’ first two Pacific 10 games, in which he shot 41.7%, scored 10 points and had only 5 rebounds. After he left, Jackson learned that he had lost his starting job to Charles Rochelin when a friend telephoned him in Denver.

“I just want to get back on the court,” Jackson said. “I hope things will change. I left as a starter and came back at the bottom of the pole.

“Even if I never play that much again, I’m only 18 hours away from my degree in economics, so I’ll graduate,” he said. “I came here to graduate. I know I’m an intelligent enough person I can do other things in my life than play basketball.”

Hazzard wouldn’t commit himself on whether Jackson, a junior, will play much anymore. “He may have to accept it,” Hazzard said. “That’s the way it is now. I’m the one who makes the decisions, and along the way, some cards are going to fall.”

There are a lot of scores to settle this afternoon at McKale Center when the Bruins play the Wildcats. UCLA is 8-4 overall and 3-2 in the conference, while Arizona is 7-4 and 2-1.

Last season, Arizona beat UCLA, 85-60, at McKale and, 88-76, at Pauley in a game that included Reggie Miller’s deliberate elbowing of Craig McMillan.

Wildcat Coach Lute Olson was incensed at Miller, and while Reggie, if he is healthy, is pointing toward today’s game as a chance for revenge, the Arizona crowd is certain to be riding Miller from the tipoff.

Channel 2 will televise the game at approximately 4 p.m., following the NFC championship game.

UCLA trainer Tony Spino has been a busy man lately because of the flu bug that has hit the Bruins.

As the players got sicker, Spino twice bought out the entire supply of Pepto Bismol in the gift shop of the team’s hotel.

Spino bought all six bottles on the shelf one night and six more the next morning, each time from the same salesperson.

Said Spino: “The second time she kind of looked at me funny and said, ‘You know, you really ought to see a doctor.’ ”