Jackson: Bad Boy Makes Good

Take, even, parking tickets. Not long ago Jackson visited the video arcade on College Street in Auburn to work the Galaga game, an exercise in kill-or-be-killed in which, he said, "you're dodging bullets all the time." When Jackson emerged to find a ticket on his windshield, he drove straight to the police department. Fifty cents, paid-in-full. "If you don't pay within 24 hours, it goes up to a dollar," says Jackson.

IMAGINE AN athlete so gifted that the very abundance of his gifts worked to obscure his greatness. That's a tough concept to latch on to, but consider Jackson's case. At McAdory High in McCalla, Ala., he'd only carry the ball 11 times a game because he was so busy playing every down on defense, returning kicks, kicking off, punting and kicking PATs and field goals. "He didn't pile up the great stats," says McAdory coach Dick Atchison, "because he never came off the field."

In high school Jackson did things like twist his ankle while winning the state title in the triple jump (48'8 �") and then come back the same day to set a state record in the 100-yard dash (9.54); like throw a discus 149 feet without spinning his body because he'd never been taught the proper form; like win the state decathlon crown his junior and senior years without running the mile, the final event, because "distance is the only thing I hate about track." As a senior Jackson hit .493 with 20 home runs and was drafted by the Yankees, who offered him a $250,000 contract.

Jackson is the Southeastern Conference's first three-sport letterman in 20 years. He has the fastest time in the 40 (4.12) ever turned in by a football player, college or pro, and bench-presses 400 pounds. "Every so often in practice he does things—balance and awareness things—that we've never seen before," says Jack Crowe, Auburn's offensive coordinator. "The fact that he wasn't a polished runner in high school has him learning his style as he goes. He started last year trying to knock folks down. By the second half of the season he was giving them the fast track instead of the hard road. And he didn't fumble but once last year, when he took his eye off a pitchout. Then he threw all of his athletic ability into trying to get that ball back."

Last spring Jackson gave up baseball to concentrate on track but quit at midseason, partly because his best time in the 100 meters, a 10.39 at the Florida Relays in March, wasn't good enough to qualify him for the Olympic trials. "He didn't come to Auburn to run track," says Tigers coach Pat Dye, who doubles as athletic director. "He came to play football. And he's just beginning to realize the impact he can have on a game."

In fact, Jackson has a knack for playing well in big games. In a 28-21 defeat of Florida, a game in which he played while suffering from a virus, he went 55 yards on his second run from scrimmage, then 80 on another, to score twice. And, for reasons we'll soon see, he has a showman's way of beating up on ' Bama.

But a legend, even in Alabama, is made from more than regularly rolling the Tide. It comes from refusing the 1984 Sugar Bowl MVP trophy, insisting it go to a teammate, Lionel (Little Train) James. Or routinely getting yawny and falling asleep on the locker room floor before games. Or throwing a football that hit the Louisiana Superdome's ceiling replay screen, a first; before Jackson, only punters had reached it. Someone had bet Jackson he couldn't do it. "I like to make 'em look the fool," he says.

IT ISN'T HARD to get "Bo" from "boar hog," which is what Jackson's eldest brother decided was the only thing as tough as Bo when Bo was only six. Jackson has four brothers and five sisters. His mother, Florence Bond, is a custodian in a Ramada Inn in Hoover, Ala. His father, A.D. Adams, lives in Birmingham. "I was tough like a wild boar," says Jackson. "I had one of the toughest stomachs you could imagine. My brothers and cousins would draw all the way back to Mississippi and hit me, and I wouldn't feel nothing."

With all its echoic terseness, "Bo" suits a body-popping running back just fine. It's in a regal enough tradition, too: behind Derek, the decafox; Peep, the little one; Lamar, the erstwhile basketball superstar; Diaz, the catcher (who's really Beaudilio); Belinsky, the pitcher; and Diddley, the bluesman. Then there's Bo Schembechler, the Michigan coach, whose defense, according to Jackson, "hit like yellow jackets" in last season's Sugar Bowl. Nonetheless, Jackson gained 130 yards and MVP honors as the Tigers won 9-7.

But the namesake with whom Jackson is most frequently compared is Herschel Walker, whose family calls him Bo. Both Bo's have a small-town Southern upbringing, and both have sprinter's speed and claim to prefer track to football. Jackson's and Walker's dimensions are uncannily similar (6'1", about 220 pounds), they wear the same number (34) and both had startling freshman debuts.