Despite Willie Jackson’s Severe Learning Disability and Arrest of His Mother, Football and New Family Give Him an . . . : Outside Chance

Bill Norton gently laments the restrictions that prevent him from playing Willie Jackson at outside linebacker on his Pierce College football team.

There’s no problem with Jackson’s athletic ability. At 6 feet 4 and 248 pounds, Jackson can bench-press 450 pounds. And because of his speed, he runs wind sprints in practice with the defensive backs.

“Oh boy, would Willie be a big-time Division I guy,” Norton says. “If he played on the outside, nobody could block him. He’s got no body fat on him and he’s faster than most of our linebackers now. He’d be perfect as a Florida State linebacker.”

There is no Florida State in Jackson’s future, though, or any college football beyond Pierce. The imposing 20-year-old sophomore with a weightlifter’s physique but a child’s gentle manner was born with a severe learning disability and has the academic development of a third-grader.

Under state junior college rules that allow schools to accept anyone 18 or older regardless of academic background, Jackson has gained athletic eligibility by taking a curriculum dominated by physical education classes. Although many universities have programs for learning-disabled students of average intelligence, no four-year schools, according to various national organizations for the disabled, offer programs for students with disabilities as severe as Jackson’s.

His disability affects him on the field, too. Instead of playing on the outside of the defense, where his assignment would change from play to play, Jackson will start at the less mentally challenging defensive tackle Saturday when Pierce begins its Western State Conference schedule at L.A. Harbor.

The Brahmas opened the season Sept. 11 with a 40-0 loss to Palomar, one of the nation’s top-rated junior college teams.

Typically, you will hear no complaints from Jackson about the position he plays. He’s simply delighted--”All my teammates and coaches are wonderful”--to be back on the team after a season’s absence. He has overcome considerable obstacles--among them a violent home life--to earn a second season of junior college football.

Jackson attended a “school within a school” at Taft High in Woodland Hills and instead of a diploma received a letter of commendation in 1991, attesting to his effort and attendance.

That fall, he enrolled at Pierce, taking 12 units, and gained instant athletic eligibility in accordance with state junior college rules. He became a second-team all-conference selection at defensive tackle for the Brahmas, who played in a postseason bowl game.

To earn a second year of eligibility under state rules, Jackson needed to maintain a 2.0 grade-point average in 24 units. He seemed on target, passing 17 units, but he disappeared from the team in the summer of ‘92, missed classes and was declared academically ineligible.

Long-simmering differences at home with his mother, Rosie, a single mother of five boys who also has a learning disability, chased him out of the house. Jackson spent a nomadic summer with various friends around the San Fernando Valley, then his mother was arrested last September after a domestic dispute and charged with assault, child endangerment and battery.

Rosie allegedly threatened Jackson’s two younger brothers with a BB gun and spent a month in jail. Charges eventually were dropped and Jackson’s two younger brothers were placed in protective custody with Chiquita Reeves, a longtime friend of the family who lives in San Fernando.

Rosie, who could no longer afford the Woodland Hills home she rented for her family, moved in with a relative in Pacoima.

Jackson, who hasn’t seen his mother since the arrest, was still drifting from one temporary home to another when he spent a night last fall in the Woodland Hills home of Michele Gardner, a Pierce student, and her mother, Vicki. One night became two and then three and now, nearly a year later, Jackson has found a home--and a family.

Vicki Gardner, 47, has longstanding ties with Pierce. She earned an associate degree in art at the school before moving on to Cal State Northridge and later served for five years on the board of the Foundation for Pierce College.

A deeply religious person who beat cancer at 27, she now travels to Mexico with fellow church members who build homes in impoverished neighborhoods. Frequently in the past, she has opened her home to those in need.

She cheerfully acknowledges that she knows little about football but recognizes the role she plays in Jackson’s life, especially since he introduced her to friends as his step-mother shortly after he moved in.

“I know he needed a mother image, a mother-type to look after him,” she says.

When Jackson arrived, he had little more than the shirt on his back, having lost his few worldly possessions--including all his football mementos--when his mother went to jail. Now, he has his own room, paying rent out of money he receives from a federal program for disabled persons. He cooks his meals and has mastered rudimentary living skills such as setting his alarm clock and doing weekly chores.

“Give Willie ordinary care and he blossoms,” Gardner says.

Jackson has flourished under the stability provided by the Gardners. He re-enrolled at Pierce last spring, made up the units he needed to regain his athletic eligibility and again erased doubts among school officials, who had feared that his enrollment would raise questions about the school’s academic standards.

Bob Garber, the dean of student services who knows Gardner from her work on the school’s foundation, is grateful that Jackson crossed paths with her.

“Vicki is a kind and warmhearted person,” he says. “We’re glad that things are coming his way, things that are satisfying and fulfilling and allowing him to be the person he can be.”

Norton, the coach who has championed Jackson’s cause among Pierce officials, also appreciates the role the Gardners have played.

“Willie is trying to grow up,” he says. “It’s good he’s with Michele and Vicki because he needs that. And it’s good he’s back playing football. Football is not going to make Willie a good guy, but football will give him a chance to see where he belongs in society and where he can be successful in society.”

Like Norton and others in Jackson’s life, Gardner fears for his future. What happens after the season when his eligibility ends? What will Jackson find to replace football as a source of self-esteem?

Gardner worries about that and the role she will play in Jackson’s life.

“I don’t know if I can keep him for a lifetime, and he may need us for a lifetime,” she says.

Still, there is the rest of the football season to work out those problems, and Gardner plans to tackle the questions as vigorously as Jackson attacks the line of scrimmage. As do most of his teammates, she wants Jackson to enjoy the season and the friendships he has made on the team.

“He needs to have his shot like anyone else,” defensive lineman Justin Fix says. “It’s a shame he has to stop playing because the parameters aren’t set up for him. Having Willie on the team is never a detriment. Sure, we’re limited in some of the stunts we run because of him. But I can always look to Willie for having fun on the field. He just goes at it. He’s raw football.”