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Catching Up With . . .
John Jefferson, San Diego wide receiver
August 20, 1979
Posted: Tue August 11, 1998
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(Richard Mackson)
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During
his
three seasons as a receiver in coach Don Coryell's aerial
circus, John Jefferson had an impact on the San Diego
Chargers' passing attack that was as electric as the gold
lightning bolts that exploded off the sleeves of the team's
jerseys. Blessed with
the body control of a belly dancer and suction cups for
hands, Jefferson twice led the NFL in touchdown catches and
became the first player in the league to gain 1,000 yards
receiving in each of his first three seasons. His frequent
landings in opposing
end zones prompted team publicists to dub him
the Jefferson Airplane. He preferred a simpler sobriquet:
JJ.
Jefferson stamped his initials on NFL couture as well.
After being poked in the eye as a rookie, in 1978, he
donned a pair of wraparound goggles for protection. The
funky eyewear coupled with San Diego's space-age uniforms
made him look like an extra
from the cantina scene in
Star
Wars. "We were something different," says Jefferson
of the Chargers in those days. "We were a breath of
fresh
air."
The air in San Diego soon turned stale for JJ. After he
held out during training camp in 1981, the Chargers dealt
him to the Green Bay Packers for wideout Aundra Thompson
and three draft
choices. Expected to team with fellow All-Pro receiver
James
Lofton to form the most dynamic duo in Wisconsin since Laverne
and Shirley, the
6'1", 198-pound Jefferson instead wound up playing
second fiddle. In San Diego, Jefferson had caught 66.3
passes per year; in his last five seasons, with the Packers
and the Cleveland Browns, he averaged only 30.4.
Jefferson was working as a commercial real estate broker in
his native Dallas when football came calling again, in
1989. At the urging of his former Green Bay coach Forrest
Gregg, he started as a volunteer assistant at SMU, and in
1990 he was hired to
coach the wide receivers at Kansas, a position he held for
four years before moving into athletic administration.
Today, Jefferson, 42, is director of student-athlete life
at Kansas and lives in Lawrence with his wife, DeWanda, and
their children,
Tiffany, 18, and John Jr.,
14.
With
quarterback Dan Fouts, wideout Charlie Joiner and tight end Kellen
Winslow of Coryell's Chargers now in
the Pro Football Hall of
Fame, JJ has no doubt what would have happened had he
remained in pass-happy San
Diego. "If I had stayed," he says, "then you
would have been reading about Jerry Rice breaking all of my
records."
—Richard
Deitsch
Issue date: August 18, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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