Bo Knows It Is Time to Act, So He Retires

In the fall of 1987, Raider executive Al LoCasale and defensive back Mike Haynes were standing on the sideline at the club’s training headquarters in El Segundo, engaged in a friendly argument over who was the fastest man in team history.

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by a 6-foot-1, 234-pound blur whizzing past them.

“Now,” Haynes said, “the argument is, who is the second-fastest.”

Vincent Edward Jackson could turn heads, settle arguments and set new standards with a burst of speed or a flick of the wrist. There has never been another quite like him.

He became the national sports phenom of the ‘80s, going from the Heisman Trophy at Auburn to stardom in both major league baseball and the NFL at the same time to superstardom in the marketing world. Playing for the Raiders in football and the Angels, Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox in baseball, Jackson was good enough to be voted into both the NFL’s Pro Bowl and baseball’s All-Star Game. He once hit a baseball 550 feet. He once ran 92 yards with a football.

He got so big that he became known simply by his nickname. Everybody knew Bo. And, thanks to a series of shoe commercials, “Bo knows. . .” became a national catch phrase.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Bo knows he’s had enough.

Jackson, forced to leave the Raiders because of a hip injury suffered in a playoff game following the 1990 season, said he’s retiring from baseball and will pursue an acting career.

In his one strike-shortened season with the Angels, his role was reduced to designated hitter because of an artificial hip. He hit .279 with 13 home runs and 43 runs batted in 201 at bats.

“I’m very serious about this,” he told the Associated Press of his acting ambitions. “I’ll never just play ‘Bo Jackson’ . . . I’ve been playing ‘Bo Jackson’ for 32 years.”

Jackson said another factor is the enjoyment he received from spending the baseball strike at home with his wife and three children.

“After eight months, I’ve really gotten to know my family,” he said. “That is the big thing behind it (the retirement).”

Jackson said he also will be pursuing business interests. Among his various investments in his native Alabama is a restaurant that he and basketball star Charles Barkley own at Auburn. Jackson also works with the HealthSouth sports medicine company in Birmingham and is marketed by Bo Jackson Enterprises in Mobile.

Jackson, who has signed with the William Morris agency, says he is involved with several possible movie projects. While he concedes he might portray an ex-athlete at some point, he said, “I want to get as far away from the sports spectrum as I can.”

When he left college, it appeared Jackson, despite winning the 1985 Heisman, was going to get as far away from football as he could. He turned his back on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who made him the No. 1 pick in the draft, and joined the Royals’ organization. But a year later, when the Raiders selected Jackson in the seventh round, the 183rd player overall, he changed his mind. He decided he would play football, but only if he could report in October, after the end of the baseball season.

That was a tough wish for any team to grant--until the Raiders put a stopwatch on Jackson.

Alexander Wright, a former Raider and a two-time winner of the NFL’s Fastest Man race, was once asked how Jackson in his prime would fare in a race with the speedy receivers the Raiders have assembled, such as Rocket Ismail and James Jett.

“A few might nip him in the 100 (yards),” Wright said, “but none of them could touch him at 40 yards. Other guys run fast. Bo explodes.”

Just ask the Seattle Seahawks and the Cincinnati Bengals. Against them, Jackson became the only player in NFL history to record two runs in excess of 90 yards. And Jackson played part time for only three seasons.

Jackson scored 16 rushing touchdowns and, on 515 carries, gained 2,782 yards, the ninth-highest total in team history. His average of 5.4 yards per carry is a Raider record. He also caught 40 passes for 372 yards and two more touchdowns.

It all ended as suddenly as it had begun. In that playoff game game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Jackson ran for 34 yards at the start of the second half before being pulled down from behind by Kevin Walker. It was not a particularly vicious tackle, but Jackson suffered a hip injury that ended his football career.

He continued to play baseball following hip-replacement surgery, but he was never the same, the blinding speed reduced to an agonizing trot, a painful sight to anyone who ever saw him in his prime.

Jackson, who hit 141 home runs and drove in 415 runs in a baseball career that began in 1986, considered his greatest baseball feat a defensive play. In a game against the Seattle Mariners before he was injured, Jackson, then a Royal, stood on the left field warning track and threw out a runner at home plate with a toss that went more than 300 feet in the air with the game on the line.

“It was the greatest throw I’ve ever seen in my life,” said John Wathan, then Jackson’s manager. “I’ve been in the game 30 years, and I don’t think I’ll ever see another like it.”

The same could be said of Jackson.

Times staff writer Bob Nightengale contributed to this story.