Much More Than Success : Taft’s Jackson Has Become a Standout Lineman Despite Severe Learning Disability, but the Immense Fulfillment He Derives Might Vanish Soon

The simple cheerfulness left Willie Jackson’s face for the first time in the conversation as he struggled with the idea of life without football.

“I’ll be very unhappy if I don’t play next year,” he said as he sat in a special education classroom at Taft High in Woodland Hills. “I want to play football. I like to sack the quarterback.”

The 6-foot-4, 235-pound defensive end is the strongest football player in Taft history and possesses man-sized talent, enough for him to play at a Division I college. But he probably never will because he has the intellectual development of a 6-year-old.

Jackson, 18, is a dominating pass rusher who can bench-press 450 pounds, has outstanding speed for a player his size, is a hard-working overachiever and was the most popular player on Taft’s team.

“If I had 50 players like Willie, I’d still be coaching,” said Tom Stevenson, who resigned as Taft’s coach after last season.

But a congenital condition has left Jackson developmentally disabled. He reads at the first-grade level and can handle simple addition and subtraction problems. But the multiplication tables are beyond his grasp. And when asked his telephone number, he stumbled over the first few digits before reaching for a worn piece of paper he keeps in his wallet for reference.

He doesn’t have a driver’s license and would need serious coaching to navigate far from home on a public bus. His disability is compounded by a speech impediment.

But when the subject turns to football, he comes through loud and clear. His self-esteem has skyrocketed since he started sacking quarterbacks. In fact, his teachers and counselors maintain that his success in football has made him a better student. Before he joined the football team, he couldn’t read. Now, he routinely signs schoolwork assignments: William Gene Jermaine Jackson, Taft football “79.” His uniform number was 79.

He has remained eligible at Taft by earning grades in special education classes, but he won’t receive a high school diploma in June. Instead, he will get a letter of recommendation, attesting to his attendance and effort.

Were it not for his football ability, that would end his academic career. But where else but college can Jackson continue playing?

Basketball and baseball players can compete in municipal or semipro leagues after high school, but football is all but extinct outside the professional ranks and in schools. And unlike some baseball and basketball players, no football player in recent history has gone directly from high school to a professional career.

Many universities have programs for learning-disabled students of average intelligence who are unable to perform adequately because of various disabilities. But, according to a number of national organizations for the disabled, no colleges have programs for the developmentally disabled or those with below-average intelligence, such as Jackson.

Still, Jackson may find a spot on the Pierce College football roster next fall. Coach Bill Norton is recruiting him, but it remains unclear whether the school can accommodate a student with Jackson’s special needs.

His coaches, teachers, family and friends want him to continue playing, if for no other reason than he wants to. Those advisers also fear that he will get lost in a college setting and can derive little benefit from college courses geared to those with superior abilities. Even the manuals for vocational education classes at community colleges are written at the sixth- and seventh-grade reading levels.

Athletic officials, educators, coaches and representatives in disabled services, however, agree that Jackson’s case is unique.

“We have no precedent for this and I can see there is a real dilemma,” said Susan Sargent, a specialist in programs for the disabled in the state community college office. “He’s succeeding in one area and you don’t want to take that away from him, but we can’t compromise our academic standards. You don’t want to set him up for failure by enrolling him in classes he can’t handle.”

Jackson may not grasp the elements of the problem, but his position is clear.

“I like football,” he said.

It’s not surprising that Jackson has found success in football, considering the bloodlines on his mother’s side of the family. Jackson’s second cousin is Charles White, the Heisman Trophy winner from USC who played at San Fernando High and whose nephew, Russell White, is the state’s all-time leading rusher from Crespi in Encino and now a star running back at California.

But Jackson seemed like anything but a budding football star when he arrived at Taft two years ago as a sophomore. Because of his disability and gentle nature, he was an easy target for insensitive classmates.

“He was picked on unmercifully,” said Larry Stewart, Taft’s new coach. “There were unkind words and he didn’t know how to react. He was very shy and gentle, and it’s a good thing because he could have killed some of those kids if he went after them.”

Jackson joined the team after the start of the season when his counselor, Betty Wright, brought him out to the football field. He needed more attention than the average player and it took time for the coaches to gauge his mental capabilities. Memorizing the offensive play book was out of the question, but Jackson seemed well suited for the defensive line.

“We could see that he had a lot of athletic potential, but he did everything very deliberately,” said Stewart, who was an assistant coach at the time. “We had to start from the beginning, like how to get in a three-point stance. Willie was the type of kid we would never give up on because he was so nice. He was such a great kid everybody went out of their way to help him.”

Gradually, Jackson started to pick up the rudiments but struggled with the fundamental element of the game--aggression. He had to be convinced that it was OK to tackle a teammate. When he knocked someone down in practice, coaches and players lavished praise on him until the message began to stick.

Although he struggled to learn the game, he had no trouble in the weight room. He loved to lift weights and soon impressed his teammates with his exceptional strength. When Jackson approached the barbell, other activity in the weight room stopped.

“The first steppingstone for making him more recognizable on campus as someone special was the weights,” said Stevenson, the former coach. “Kids became aware of him through his lifting prowess.”

Jackson got stronger but started his junior season as a third-stringer. He still warranted special treatment, sometimes in ways unknown by the coaches.

For instance, when Taft played Servite in a Saturday night game in Orange County that season, Stevenson told Jackson he was expected at school at 3 o’clock on game day. Jackson stared intently at his coach and assured him he understood.

The next day, 3 o’clock came and went, and Jackson was nowhere in sight. The team held the bus for 30 minutes before leaving for Orange County without him.

Stevenson sought out Jackson at school on Monday and asked him what had happened.

Said Jackson: “Coach, I rode my bicycle down here at 3 o’clock in the morning and no one was here.”

Stevenson paused a second, then apologized profusely.

“What could I do?” Stevenson said as he recalled the incident. “It was our fault that we didn’t tell him it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon.”

By midseason, Jackson had won a starting job, then finished the year as an All-West Valley League selection and was chosen the team’s most improved player.

A year later, he blossomed into one of the area’s top linemen and was a repeat all-league selection. He also was chosen the team’s MVP on defense and earned second-team recognition on The Times’ All-Valley team.

More important for Jackson, he no longer required special treatment. Although his forte is rushing the passer, he is more than a one-dimensional player who must be pointed in the right direction on each play. He understands defensive signals, was never out of position and played the whole season without incurring a penalty. By the end of the season, he was reminding younger players of their assignments.

“He made less mistakes than anyone on the defensive line,” Stewart said. “He learned all our stunts and adjusted to a different game plan each week. Two years ago, he couldn’t have done that.”

Teammates also appreciated Jackson’s style. Perhaps, he served as a reminder that sport was supposed to be fun.

“Willie was never angry on the field,” junior lineman Jeff Cohen said. “When some guys sack the quarterback, they get all wild and angry. But Willie was just happy. He just wanted to make everyone on the team happy.”

Said Jackson: “It makes me happy when the players cheer me on. ‘Go Willie! Go Willie!’ The whole school is at the game. People say, ‘That’s my boy.’ ”

When asked what he remembers most about last season, he said, “All the wonderful friends on the team.”

Those friends help Jackson lead the life of a normal teen-ager. He is a rap music fan, loves the movies and spends time hanging out in the mall. He also dates but has no steady girlfriend.

Friends say the key to his popularity is his openness. Although he is the strongest guy on campus, he cried when he saw the movie “Ghost.”

“He’s about as sweet a kid as I ever coached,” Stevenson said. “He’s an affectionate young man. And he says, ‘Thank you,’ when you do something for him, which is pretty rare these days.”

Jackson lives with his mother, Rosie, and four brothers in a modest, three-bedroom home in a quiet neighborhood in Woodland Hills. He attends services every Sunday at a church in San Fernando where Rosie serves as an usher.

Rosie was a special education student at San Fernando High and four of her five sons--11 through 19--are special ed students.

“I’m so proud of myself because I got a house for my boys,” she said. “My kids are proud of me and we’re a happy family.”

Seven years ago, the family was splintered. Rosie was homeless, had no job and lived out of a car with her then-boyfriend. County authorities had taken her sons away and put them under foster care.

Then Rosie crossed paths with Chiquita Reeves, a 60-year-old psychiatric nurse who works at the Veteran’s Administration hospital in Sepulveda.

“It was about seven years ago that Rosie came to my house with her boyfriend, who was doing some work for my husband,” Reeves said. “She was dirty and everything, so I invited her inside.”

When her boyfriend left, Rosie stayed behind with Reeves, who took Rosie under her wing. She helped Rosie apply for Social Security benefits and within six months arranged for her two oldest sons, one of them Willie, to return to their mother. In another six months, the three other sons rejoined the family.

Rosie has worked in convalescent homes as a nursing assistant but hasn’t had a job in a few years, according to Reeves, who helps manage the family’s life. Rosie’s Social Security checks, her only source of income, are sent to Reeves, who pays the family’s rent and utility bills.

“I had to because they kept turning off her lights,” Reeves said.

Rosie, who has a driver’s license and a car, visits nearly every day with Reeves, whom she calls her “auntie.”

“I’m like her mother, auntie and whole family,” Reeves said. “She doesn’t trust anybody, but she trusts me.”

Like everyone who knows Willie Jackson, Reeves wants to see him continue with football, primarily because it makes him happy. Because football is the one thing that has brought him success, she wants him to stick with it.

“Willie is a really nice boy,” Reeves said. “He just sits and smiles at me. When I get in the car, he tells me to fasten my seat belt. I say, ‘OK, for you, Willie, I will.’ I wish there was some way he could play football so he could do something with his life.”

Cal State Fullerton, which has a Division I college program, has recruited Jackson, but Coach Gene Murphy acknowledges that Jackson’s chances of gaining acceptance to the school are remote. Fullerton has an extensive learning-disabled program designed to assist those in the mainstream student population.

At Taft, Jackson attended a “school within a school” with a curriculum aimed at his learning level because regular classes were too advanced for him.

Because Jackson has not taken the Scholastic Aptitude Test, he would be ineligible at any four-year school as a freshman and could gain eligibility only if he completed 24 hours of course work by his sophomore season, an unlikely prospect.

“We’d have to have him tested here and it’s a long shot,” Murphy acknowledged. “It’s a shame too. He’s had success among his peer group in an extracurricular activity and his self-esteem has improved.”

Jean Domine, a special education teacher at Taft, has become a football fan--at least of the Toreadors--through her work with Jackson. Although she hopes he continues to play, she recommends vocational education for him. Taft has arranged two hotel jobs for Jackson, who will work during the spring semester at the West Valley Occupational Center in Woodland Hills.

“I’m worried that if they don’t get him into vocational training at the same time he’s playing football, it will hurt him,” she said.

Said Wright, Jackson’s counselor, “We’re preparing Willie for life, not just football.”

Norton, Pierce’s first-year coach, hopes the Woodland Hills school can meet both needs.

“I would love to have Willie come to Pierce,” he said. “I’m investigating now what we have for him and then I’m going to sit down with his mother. If I don’t think we have a program that’s beneficial to him, I’ll tell his mother that.”

That may well be the message that Norton brings to Rosie Jackson. Like other schools in the Los Angeles Community College District, Pierce has an extensive program for learning disabled students, but David Phoenix, a specialist in the program, doubts it is suited for Jackson.

“It’s a quantum leap, going from high school to junior college,” he said. “We have nothing at Pierce like what he’s had in high school. We’re not in the business of working with that population. We offer learning-skill classes for folks who are self-monitoring. If he was (less severely) learning disabled, then I’m your man. Heck, every JC in the world would be after him.”

Still, under one scenario, Jackson could fashion a one-season career at Pierce. Because a high school diploma is not required for admittance to California junior colleges, schools can accept residents 18 or older without diplomas if the school administrators believe they can profit from the education or training offered at the school.

In addition, under state athletic guidelines, as long as he was actively enrolled in 12 units, Jackson would be eligible for fall sports as a freshman. To gain a second season of eligibility, he must maintain a 2.0 grade-point average and complete 24 units, a task that seems beyond Jackson’s abilities.

Jackson could drop out after the football season and then seek vocational training, delaying his start in a job-skills class by a few months. Although that scenario raises fears about setting Jackson up for failure in the classroom and raises questions about the role of a community college, the arrangement has no legal roadblocks.

“An open-admission system doesn’t mean we don’t have academic standards,” said Ralph Black, legal counsel in the state community college office. “But a school could admit him and provide him with support. He could hang in there as long as he can. It probably rides on how badly he wants to do this thing.”

Stevenson, the former Taft coach, thinks one season at Pierce may be the best alternative for Jackson.

“Even if it’s just one season, that’s what he wants,” he said. “I think he should enjoy every day as much as he can, and that would make him happy. Vocational training will still be there after next football season.”

Jackson is excluded from the debate over his future. He is unable to argue his case persuasively, but his dreams show where his heart lies. Like high school football players all over the country, he hopes for a professional football career. He even knows how he will react when the television cameras catch him on the sidelines.

“I think about pro football a lot,” he said. “One of these days that will be me on TV. People will be watching.”

He pauses for a minute in mid-reverie, then waves to an imaginary camera. “Hi, Mom,” he says with a gentle smile.