A Timely Matter, or Physics of the Holiday Rush

The subject today is football speed and how it may pertain to Bo Jackson, captain of American industry, and others who run with the ball and catch it.

It isn’t known at this point how fast Bo runs. Nor is it known how fast anyone else with the Raiders runs.

The Raiders won’t tell you how fast their players run. They won’t even tell you how fast Virginia, the switchboard operator, runs because once the opponent learns the speed of Virginia, it can change its coverage and go stride for stride with her on long-distance calls, as well as local.

In football, remember, everything is matchup.

So, once the Raiders record a time on Bo, Willie Gault, Tim Brown, Ron Brown, Sam Graddy, Mervyn Fernandez and others with more than usual speed, they move the information out of the country.

You have heard of guys with millions buried in Swiss banks? The Raiders hide their 40-yard clockings there.

It has been said that Bo has run 40 yards faster than 4.2 seconds. It probably isn’t true, but even if it is, you aren’t going to impress Jim Bush, track coach of USC, who has done extensive work helping professional teams develop speed.

In his time, Jim has tutored the Raiders, Dodgers, Lakers, even the hockey Kings.

And in football, he will tell you that clockings mean little unless a man is timed with (a) a ball tucked into his arm and (b) 16 pounds of equipment fastened to his body.

“Arm action is vital to sprinting,” Bush explains. “Carrying a ball, one doesn’t develop the fluid motion of one whose arms are moving free.”

George Allen, pundit of Palos Verdes, concurs that Bo, embarked on an 88-yard run against Cincinnati the other day, was caught by his pursuer, Rod Jones, mainly because Bo was packing a ball and Rod wasn’t.

“But Jones showed character,” George says. “He chased Bo gamely for maybe 60 yards.”

Since Jones is a former quarter-miler, he didn’t figure to catch Bo, who was running east in the Coliseum, until the two reached Figueroa Street.

By the time they got to Broadway, Jones would have left him in the dust.

“What that chase also proved,” says track coach Bush, “is that both Jackson and Jones are able to carry their speed packing equipment. Like horses, certain guys pack weight better than others. Football people don’t learn this at camp, where guys are usually clocked in shorts. Camp speed readings can be deceptive.”

It is sometimes reported, but not to be believed, that players running 88 yards “turn on the jets” in the last stages.

“There is no greater fallacy,” Bush says. “It is proved in track that a sprinter going 100 meters reaches his maximum speed by 60 meters. Trying to accelerate beyond 60, he will develop fatigue. The best a sprinter can hope for is to reach his maximum by 60 and sustain it. Same thing in football. Running full-out for 60 yards, Bo doesn’t then accelerate. It would appear that way only if the guy chasing him gets tired and falls back.”

For all the intrigue surrounding Jackson, for all the commotion he generates, most people lose sight of the fact he carried the ball last Sunday an average of only twice a quarter.

Either the Raiders see Bo as some kind of extraordinary specialist, like a doctor who works only on eyelids, or the Raiders have gone daffy.

Possessed of that type of weapon, one with Bo’s striking power, do you use him only eight times in a game you must win to wrap up a playoff spot?

Now, gunning for home-field advantage in the playoffs, do you use him eight times again?

When he signed Bo to the unique contract he did--the player was permitted to report in October--Al Davis explained: “He isn’t our bread and butter. He is an adjunct. He is a special force designed to pick us up through the last 10 games.”

It develops now that Jackson has made enough of an impact for his colleagues to vote him to the AFC’s Pro Bowl team, quite an achievement for one who, in a big-money game, carries the ball only eight times.

Cincinnati backers seize upon that statistic to strengthen the case of defensive back Rod Jones, catching Bo from behind.

Carrying the ball but eight times, Bo, they argue, was fresh. Jones was running around all day.