Jackson's Biological Father

Jackson’s family, friends and area he grew up in paved the way for a successful professional career in baseball and football. Jackson’s biological father named A.D. Adams left him at a very young age and stopped by once a month to give the family twenty dollars (Hoffer). Jackson has a mother whose name is Florence Jackson (Jackson and Schaap 14). Jackson’s mother gave her everything for her kids working multiple jobs (49). Jackson never had a father figure in his life until he got to high school. Jackson blamed his biological father, A.D. Adams for all of the problems that Jackson had. Jackson hired other kids to beat people up, as he stated “I didn’t have time to beat all of them up myself.” Many people disliked Jackson because of the way
Atchison was also Jackson’s football coach and a great mentor in Jackson’s teenage years; he was more than a father figure (43). Atchison taught Jackson a lot like how to control his temper when he got mad he also taught him how to take his anger out on the sports he played, Dick also taught Jackson how to “flop” in the track event he was in (44).Jackson looked for another person to look up to but this one would be a person who was similar to himself. Jackson wanted to be like Mike Tyson and Jackson looked up to him (58-60). When Mike Tyson lost a boxing match, Jackson felt like he had lost too because in his head they were the same person. Jackson said after Tyson’s loss, “I couldn’t sleep that night” (61). Jackson was a bully to many but he had a couple close friends in his childhood. Keith Mack was Jackson’s childhood best friend. Keith and Jackson were in the same grade and did almost everything together growing up (46-47). Keith and Jackson were two out of the three starting running backs on the varsity football team as sophomores. Keith was just as good as Jackson at football but went to a junior college in Alabama. Jackson said, “They went to junior colleges because they had fathers and a better life” (50-52). This shows
Jackson’s best game was against in state rival Alabama, he carried the ball twenty times, ran for 256 yards, scored 2 touchdowns, and Auburn won the game 23-20. The closer it got to game time the sleepier and more relaxed that Jackson got. At the end of his sophomore season he had Robert Isray the owner of the Baltimore Ravens calls him and talking about potentially setting up a deal to play in the NFL. Jackson did not want to get out of college early to go to the NFL, Jackson was having too much fun in college and he wanted to play his 4 years of football at Auburn (Jackson and Schaap 72-74). Junior year for Jackson was a big year of football. The 2nd game into the season against the University of Texas Jackson had a big run but he had gotten tackled from behind and landed on his shoulder weird and separated his shoulder, but he tried to play the rest of the game. Later into the game he could not lift up his shoulder and came out of the game (80). Jackson had tweaked his ankle in the first game of the year but it wasn’t anything that he could not play through. He had time to rest his ankle when he got surgery on his shoulder. Jackson got time to go back home to see his family, he met his future wife Linda, and his favorite thing was the he did not have to practice (81). Jackson walked past the Heisman every day the one that Pat Smith from Auburn won in 1971, he imagined himself being a future