Jackson Tries to Turn Career Right-Side Up
Sean Jackson vividly remembers the moment that shaped his basketball career, starting him on the road from California to UC Irvine.
It was the first day. The first class. The first step as a freshman at Berkeley.
“I was just coming out of class and there was an assistant coach waiting for me and another player,” Jackson said. “He said, ‘You have to come with me. We’re having a press conference.’ ”
Cal’s men’s basketball coach, Todd Bozeman, was forced to resign under the cloud of an NCAA investigation. Ben Braun succeeded him, taking the Golden Bears to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament the next season while weeding out players.
By the end of his sophomore season, Jackson was considering giving up basketball and focusing only on school. Instead, he came to Irvine, a place so far off the college basketball superhighway that the roads aren’t paved.
He sat out last season as a redshirt, watching the Anteaters lose 14 consecutive games and finish 6-20. It was frustrating not being able to help, but . . .
“You could say the last three years have been frustrating,” said Jackson, a 6-foot-5 junior forward. “At the time [Bozeman resigned] I really didn’t get it.
“Everything seemed romantic my first year. We went to the tournament and reached the Sweet 16. We were playing North Carolina on CBS. Everything was almost perfect. I wasn’t seeing the negative aspects at the time. Once summer hit and the new year began, it was all downhill. It was never the same after that press conference.”
How much Jackson could mean to the Anteaters was evident when he was told by a reporter that they could finish second in the Big West Conference’s Western Division this season.
“Yeah, who’s going to beat us?” Jackson replied.
The Anteaters have won 16 games the last three season and have had only one winning season since 1987-88.
That, however, was pre-Jackson.
“He has that workmanlike style and is very approachable for the other players,” Coach Pat Douglass said. “He helps educate them. At the same time, he brings kind of an elitist attitude and you need that. I think he will get in players’ faces a little bit.”
That has been made clear already.
In an exhibition game last week, a member of the Lithuanian club team tried to go baseline only to have Jackson cut him off and knock the ball out of bounds. Jackson then woofed at the player, giving him English and basketball lessons.
It seemed atypical for a player who is personable off the court.
“In high school [Stevenson School in Pebble Beach], his personality changed every Tuesday and Friday,” his mother, Barbara Jackson, said. “He got a lot more serious. He hates to lose. You just don’t talk to him if he loses.”
That makes Irvine a strange place for him to end up, given the Anteaters’ less-than-glorious history. Jackson, though, may change that perception.
He seems a perfect complement to freewheeling point guard Jerry Green, the conference’s freshman of the year last season. Jackson is effective in half-court play and dangerous in the open court, whether pulling up for a three-pointer or driving to the basket.
The Anteaters trailed the Lithuanian team, 24-11, with six minutes left in the first half. Jackson hit three three-pointers in a 26-7 run to close the half, then opened the second half with another. Irvine was on its way to an 80-62 victory.
Jackson finished with a team-high 20 points, making eight of 14 shots, displaying the skills that promptedevery Pac-10 school except UCLA and Arizona to recruit him.
There was a lot to like. Jackson had passion and ability on the court. He averaged 20 points and seven rebounds as a senior at Stevenson School and was named one of the top 12 players at one national summer camp.
He never got a chance at Cal. More than three years of controversies--ranging from an NCAA investigation to a restraining order against Bozeman to keep him away from a former student--finally played out in late August of 1996, when Bozeman was asked to resign.
“It was such a weird story,” Jackson said. “But I was a freshman and I didn’t know how a coaching change could affect me. I figured two assistant coaches were still there and it was still California. So everything would be OK.”
He figured wrong. He played some as a freshman, then less as a sophomore, and his situation unraveled fast as it became apparent he was not part of the Bears’ future.
“It was traumatic, but it helped me be the sort of person I am now,” Jackson said. “I definitely go into any situation with my eyes open. It almost makes you sort of a pessimist. You expect the worst to happen in any situation.”
As if to cement that point, Jackson transferred to Irvine in June 1998 and then suffered a knee injury. He had surgery and was sidelined three months.
“You come down here to hopefully resolve some problems and another one arises,” Jackson said. “It was like, ‘What’s next?’ ”
Winning at Irvine?
“I don’t like to lose,” he said. “I’m the sorest loser in college basketball today.”
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SEASON PREVIEW
Pat Douglass has enough depth to allow three freshmen to redshirt, a luxury he never had in his first two seasons as UC Irvine coach. Page 13
