Bo Jackson
 Vincent Edward Jackson

Height 6' 1", Weight 225 lb.
School Auburn University

One of the few athletes ever to participate in two professional sports, Jackson may have been the best of all--certainly the best since the great Jim Thorpe.

At Auburn University, Jackson won the 1985 Heisman Trophy as the nation's outstanding college player. A 6-foot-1, 228-pound running back with speed, he gained 4,303 yards in 650 attempts and scored 43 touchdowns during his four years as a starter.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made him the first choice overall in the 1986 NFL draft, but he chose to play professional baseball instead. After spending most of the 1986 season in the minor leagues, he joined the AL's Kansas City Royals.
Bo Jackson as a football player

Although he batted only .235, he demonstrated substantial power with 22 home runs in just 116 games in 1987. When the season was over, he joined the NFL's Los Angeles Raiders, who had chosen him in that year's draft, rushing for 554 yards in 81 carries, a 6.8 average, and scoring 4 touchdowns in 7 games.

Jackson continued playing both sports through 1990, but he suffered a series hip injury in a post-season game with the Raiders, ending his football career and threatening his baseball career. After surgery and a rehabilitation assignment to the minor leagues, he played in 23 games with the Chicago White Sox in 1991.

The following year, Jackson had an artificial hip implanted and he missed the entire 1992 season. However, he returned to the White Sox in 1993, batting .232 with 16 home runs in 85 games. Continuing problems with the hip forced him to retire during the 1994 season, after he hit 13 home runs in 75 games with the California Angels.

During his NFL career, Jackson carried the ball 515 times for 2,782 yards, a 5.4 average, and scored 16 rushing touchdowns. He caught 40 passes for 352 yards, an 8.8 average, and 2 touchdowns.

He collected 657 hits in 723 major league games, with 96 doubles, 17 triples, and 138 home runs.

In both baseball and football, Jackson's feats became the stuff of folklore and legend. In the 1982 Tangerine Bowl against Boston College, Jackson made a one-handed grab of an option pitch that quarterback Randy Campbell lobbed over the head of a defender. Jackson proceeded to score on the play, despite being hit by several defenders along the sideline.

In a 1985 baseball game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Foley Field in Athens, Jackson led Auburn to victory with a 4-for-5 performance, with three home runs and a double. Jackson launched his last home run that day into a brand new light standard.

While playing for the Royals, he ran down a long line-drive deep to left-center field on a hit-and-run play against the Seattle Mariners. With speedy Harold Reynolds running from first base on the play, the hit would have been deep enough to score him against most outfielders. But Jackson, from the warning track, turned and fired a strike to catcher Bob Boone, who tagged the sliding Reynolds out. Jackson's throw reached Boone on the fly. Interviewed for the "Bo Jackson" episode of ESPN Classic's SportsCentury, Reynolds admitted that he thought there was no way anyone would throw him out on such a deep drive into the gap in left-center, and was shocked to see his teammate telling him to slide as he rounded third base.

Also, football fans vividly remember his scintillating 221-yard rushing performance on Monday Night Football in 1987 against the Seattle Seahawks. During this memorable performance he literally ran over Seahawks star linebacker Brian Bosworth, who had insulted Jackson and promised to contain him in a media event before the game.

Jackson became a popular figure for his athleticism in multiple sports through the late 1980s and early 1990s. He endorsed Nike and launched a popular ad campaign called "Bo Knows" which envisioned Jackson attempting to take up a litany of other sports, including tennis, golf, luge, auto racing, and even blues music with Bo Diddley. Following on the heels of this widespread fame, Jackson appeared in ProStars, an NBC Saturday morning cartoon. The show featured Bo, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan fighting crime and helping children.

Interview with Bo Jackson

Q: Who were some of your favorite teammates?

Bo Jackson: Howie [Long], Bill Pickel, Greg Townsend, Bob Golic, Mervyn Fernandez, all those guys.

Q: Do you still keep in touch with any of your teammates?

Bo Jackson: I still talk to Howie every now and then, I talk to Bill Pickel every now and then, but with everyone doing their different things now, its kind of hard to keep in contact, we see each other every now and then.

Q: What was the most memorable game for you when you played for the Raiders?

Bo Jackson: I would probably say the Monday Night Seattle Seahawks game.

Q: Was it hard to play two professional sports, and if you had to choose one, which would it be, football or baseball.

Bo Jackson: No, it wasn't hard to play two professional sports. If I had to choose one or the other, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be forced to choose.

Q: How did you feel about playing for the Raiders?

Bo Jackson: Well, I think every NFL player out there has fantasies of playing in The Silver and Black. When I played, we played in the Coliseum in Los Angeles, and there isn't anything like it. The way I can describe it to someone that's never played the Coliseum is that you take your best day in athletics, business, or just anything and multiply it by a thousand times…and that's what it's like.

Q: Can you describe what it was like playing for Al Davis?

Bo Jackson: Well, I probably have more respect for Al Davis than any other professional owner I played for. For the simple reason that, Al Davis is seen as the "black sheep" of the NFL owners...because he speaks his mind. And he stands up for what he believes in. He doesn't follow everybody else, and I like that.

Q: What are you doing currently?

Bo Jackson: I've been running my company, which is called Ngenuity. My company is a Native American Women-owned 8A, SBA, SBB, and DOD government-certified company. What we do in our company is, right now, government contracts where I'm selling meats to the military and doing government staffing… So I've been keeping myself pretty busy with the food and staffing industry.