Bo Jackson, The Last Folk Hero
Episode Stats
Summary
In the 80s and 90s, few sports stars loomed as large as Bo Jackson. He was the rare athlete to play two professional sports. His strength and power seemed supernatural. He soared into end zones, ran the 40 yard dash in 4.13 seconds, hit meteoric home runs, and broke baseball bats over his head for fun.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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in the 80s and 90s few sports stars loomed as large as bo jackson a kansas city royal and an
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oakland raider he was the rare athlete to play two professional sports his strength and power
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seemed supernatural he soared into end zones ran the 40 yard dash in 4.13 seconds hit meteoric
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home runs and broke baseball bats over his head for fun and those are just his documented exploits
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because bo played in an era before smartphones stories circulated that can never be entirely
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proven or disproven that he was capable of even more impressive feats the guy was the stuff of
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legends for this reason jeff perlman has entitled his new biography of bo the last folk hero today
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on the show jeff and i talk about bo's paul bunyan s stature and the real life behind the legend we
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discuss both the flaws and strengths of bo jackson and how natural talent can be both a hindrance and
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a help as we trace his life from an impoverished upbringing as one of 10 kids to how he managed to
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secure an arrangement where he got to play two professional sports jeff explains how bo never
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liked to practice because he was so naturally gifted he didn't need to why bo didn't take the
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deal when the yankees tried to draft him out of high school the flashbulb moments he achieved in
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college in the pros how a hip injury ended his football days but didn't entirely finish him off for
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baseball and why after such a neon career bo has largely disappeared from the public eye
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after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is slash bo
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all right jeff perlman welcome to the show thank you good to be here you got a new biography out about
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bo jackson and if you were a kid in the 80s or 90s bo jackson was the guy i think most of my
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neighborhood friends had that poster of bo with the shoulder pads baseball bat draped across his
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shoulders looking like achilles on the fields of troy if you play tech mobile with your friends you
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got in fights with who is going to be the raiders because if you were the raiders you got to be number
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34 which is bo jackson you can do these insane 99 yard runs you know back before there was youtube and
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you watch sports clips highlights you had to get those vhs tapes i remember i had a vhs tape that
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had the infamous play where bo jackson runs across the outfield wall like spider-man so he's the guy
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and you make this case in this book that bo jackson was the last folk hero why is that why was jackson the
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last american folk hero all right so that was um i originally heard that terminology from another really
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great writer named joe posnanski and he called him the last folk hero and i was like wow it's great
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that's so true and i told joe i was going to borrow it i mean nowadays everything is videotaped
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everything is recorded and obviously not just from tv cameras but from the phones we all carry in our
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pockets so if some 12 year old kid in bethesda jumps over an eight foot fence someone's going to
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record it and splash it all over tiktok and instagram and it's going to go via on a second
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there was none of that with bo jackson none and i mean his games were on tv obviously but like
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he truly was i start this whole book with a quote a paul bunyan reference and he really was paul bunyan
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or kind of bigfoot or like the lochness monster where he did these things and you it just doesn't
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even sound real like he he ran a 41340 at auburn which is amazing he was 220 something pounds but
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then when he was with the raiders he ran a 41740 on grass in pads like it's preposterous his when he
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was a senior in high school he won the state decathlon championship for the second time in a row
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didn't want to run the last event which was the mile so he basically got far enough ahead so he
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wouldn't have to run the mile and then the next day his team mcadory high school is playing in a state
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playoff game for baseball and bo jackson pitches the only time that year and he strikes out 13 in
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the win and this is the same season when he wrapped up his he stole 90 out of 91 bases as a high
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schooler i mean it's just on and on all this stuff where you would go no that doesn't not uh-uh he
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jumped over a volkswagen that doesn't make i didn't i need to see it it's like well you can't see it
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because not everyone had a camera so like sometimes you just need to trust the bo jackson stories because
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they're ridiculous well yeah and there's outside of sports there's these stories about bo jackson
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doing these crazy things like you start off the book talking about when he played for the white
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socks the plane was going down and everyone said like bo jackson is the one that saved it and there's
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people that said yeah that's how it happened other people i don't know but no one filmed it so you it
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becomes a legend i actually knew so you don't always know how you're going to open a book but as soon
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as i heard that i was like this has to be it he they're flying back from california he's with the
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white socks he's a reduced version of himself because of the hip injury and plane all of a sudden
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starts making some noises uh craig erbeck's an infielder looks out the window and sees the
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half the plane on fire people start freaking out frank thomas is wrapping himself in blankets
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pillows and guys are taking out religious medallions and ozzy guin is praying to jesus and the whole thing
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it's crazy and all of a sudden the cockpit door opens and bo jackson walks out and he'd been in
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the cockpit talking to the pilots and he's like all right everyone don't worry they got it under
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control everyone just get your seatbelts on and we're going to be okay and it's this amazing story
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well then someone else tells me the story and they say no no no no no bo jackson was sitting in the
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plane the plane starts going down he walks into the cockpit to help them fly the plane so i have two
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versions of this amazing story and they both end with them landing in des moines which they did
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at an abandoned airport way early in the morning they're all starving they're all depressed whatever
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you know almost almost died in a plane crash and there's a there's a kiosk an unattended unopened
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kiosk and next to it is a beer keg with the tap locked and bo jackson walks up to it uses his bare
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hand breaks the lock off the keg and they all drink on bo jackson like that's paul bunyan stuff
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right there it's paul bunyan stuff i freaking love that stuff and there's so many things there's so
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many things like that in his life that again nowadays someone on that plane would have videotaped from the
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plane someone would have pulled out their phone they would have videotaped it and maybe we just see
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bo jackson praying to jesus sitting in the seat maybe none of it happened like but we're allowed to
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use our imagination with bo jackson and there's no one left like that right with bo jackson you had
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to be there to see it and the only way you can know about it now is just like it's it's stories
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secondhand and some youtube you know you can still see him climb up the wall like him climbing up the
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wall in baltimore is the kind of thing that lends itself to mythology right and someone would say
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that's the thing about him that's interesting too you'd be like he climbed up a wall he climbed up
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the outfield wall then ran across it then ran down and your friend would be like nah there's no way
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your grandpa would tell you that story and you'd be like grandpa you're seriously you're suffering
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from your dementia there's no way this happened well now we have this youtube clip and it actually
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adds to the mythology because it's like if he did that what else is he able to do so a theme i picked
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up as i read your book is the promise and peril of being blessed with incredible supernatural talent
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and this is a problem that you don't normally see in sports but any domain right whether it's art
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writing science whatever i mean i hope we can flesh this theme out looking at the life of bo jackson
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because like that's like he was born with just crazy raw talent so let's start off there like what
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was his upbringing like and when did people first start noticing like this guy this guy's got something
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so he um he's one of 10 kids single mom florence jackson best from alabama born in abject poverty
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bessemer's right outside of birmingham you know grew up in a 99 african-american community
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was so poor that he literally was going to school elementary school either in socks without shoes
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or his sister's hand-me-down shoes he was a bully he was a kid who beat the snot out of other kids who
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stole lunch money his nickname the origins of his nickname and this one i did check out is when he was a kid
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there's a local farmer who had um these hogs on his on these these boar hogs on his land
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and bo jackson and a bunch of his friends snuck over there and there was this one boar who was
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enormous and they just gathered around this boar and beat the living snot out of it for three days
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until it died they would hit it and just beat it and beat it beat it the hog wouldn't die they come
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back the next day they come back the third day the hog finally dies and bo is short for boar for
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boar hog so that's where the bo kind of stems from and the thing that's interesting is i wrote a
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biography of brett farve and i wrote a biography of walter payton they have similar sort of origin
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stories which is bo jackson wasn't a kid playing organized football but he was a kid throwing rocks
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at cars and throwing rocks at other kids he wasn't a little kid doing the high jump or hurdles but he was
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a kid scaling fences he wasn't a kid doing the long jump he wasn't like idolizing car lewis
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but he was jumping over ditches to escape the angry farmer because he stole fruit from his trees you
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know like he was very raw very raw everything he learned really came out of mischief and his mom
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wouldn't let him play football he played in high school in ninth grade against his mom's wishes
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he played a lot of summer league baseball he really didn't get on the map until his junior
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year of high school and he was one of three running backs on his team in mcadori high school he wasn't
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really the star but he was a physical specimen and he started doing things that blew people away
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you know running over two guys at once making these tackles that were just otherworldly and at the time
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the biggest recruit in college sports in america was marcus dupree out of philadelphia mississippi
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he was much he was bigger than bow he was stronger than bow he's about the same speed and everyone's
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talking about marcus dupree but in the state of alabama there were whispers about this kid
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in mcadori who just was some some kind of athlete and slowly but surely school started to look at him
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well you another part you mentioned he's a bully and he beat the snot out of kids part of that
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reason he beat the snot out of kids is he had a stutter and people would make fun of him and he
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would make sure that they never did that again yeah he had a severe stutter and it is really
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interesting he was actually held back he said and it's undeniably true because it was a product
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of the generation like people back then equated stutter with stupid like oh he's dumb can't get
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the words out there was one teacher and one of them wherever this teacher she's still alive it's
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one of the meanest things i've ever heard he got in trouble in class one day and the teacher made
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him stand up in front of the whole class and recite a poem because he knew his stutter was really bad
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like just mean mean stuff and i do think one of the things i enjoy about this this job and doing
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books is you could say on the base level okay bo jackson god he was such an asshole what a jerk of
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a kid but then you look into it he's one of 10 kids in a tiny house they literally don't have running
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water in their house he has to go to the outhouse to use the bathroom at night his roof is tar paper on
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his house he is sleeping on a floor he's oftentimes sleeping against a heater and would wake up with
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heater burns on his body as with the other kids in that house his mom did the best she could she
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worked as a maid at a local motel but she would beat the crap out of those kids you know physically
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beat the crap out of those kids so oh and even worse his father a guy named ad adams he wasn't just
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like an absentee father and oh i don't know who my dad is he lived across town with his own family
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and had almost nothing to do with bo jackson a little interest in this kid so i always think
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it's it's kind of unique to look at someone and on the base level you could say god he was such an
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asshole but then you're like how could he have not been he was one of 10 kids living in abject
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poverty wearing his sister's shoes to school sleeping against a heater with a father who had
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nothing who wanted nothing to do with him and he was hungry all the time how are you not going to
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be an asshole and something you point out that bo he was able to figure out that sports he saw at a
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young age he had two paths he could go down right he could continue chunking rocks at cars and getting
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in fights and going that could get even worse but then he saw like sports could save me from that like
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and he made the choice to choose sports he was terrified of reform school reform school was this
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idea in his head like the boogeyman and he had an older sibling who went to reform school
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and apparently his older sibling told him all these stories about kids getting raped
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in reform school and he was petrified of reform school so he did not want to go there and he
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starts playing sports and the thing is all of a sudden these coaches are really supportive he had a
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baseball coach who would drive you home after school people treated you special people treated you
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different you got a new uniform you could see yourself in the local newspaper he had um when he was a
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junior a local reporter from the birmingham news came to his house to write a story on him
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and she told me the story about it how he was just showing off left and right do you want to see me do
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this so i can do this watch me do this on the backyard and like you're one of 10 kids you never get this
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attention you're one of 10 kids you're not special you were held back you're old for your grade and
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you have a stutter so all of a sudden here's this thing you do and you do really well and people
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white and black are paying attention to you and praising you for it it's a it's a definitely a drug you
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know so the coaches recognize this kid's got raw talent but something that that plagued jackson
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throughout his career that he got criticized about was that he was loath to practice he did not like
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to practice did this start when he was in high school yes he was very frustrating he did not like
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to practice he hated lifting weights he hated running i mean again he wanted to win the decathlon
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decisively just so he wouldn't have to run the 1500 you know like he went out of his way to
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dominate the other events so he wouldn't have to do running he loved track he didn't like track
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workouts he loved football he hated football workouts baseball he was okay with all around
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he was not a hard worker in a lot of ways he was naturally gifted it doesn't it's not indictment he
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was so gifted and so talented he just didn't have to work in the way others did but a drug coach is
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crazy are there other athletes that you've covered or written about the same thing they were super
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talented and because they were talented they just thought they could get by without practicing
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i would say shack to a certain degree was not to the same degree but certainly in that realm
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i mean the thing that's really more interesting is every now and then you get a walter payton or kobe
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bryant where the hardest worker also happens to be the most athletic and that's when you get
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otherworldly otherworldly greatness and bo jackson had otherworldly greatness but you think
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i mean to jump ahead a little bit like he wore it as a point of pride that i don't lift weights right
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i don't lift weights and i hate working out in the offseason offseason is mine and he knew he had
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this natural gift but then you think about it like he got hurt and part of it was because he kind of
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abused his body you know he was doing these two sports his body didn't hold up maybe doing lifting
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weights would have helped maybe doing extra running would have helped i'm not i'm not saying it matters
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he doesn't care but i don't think he's in a i don't think he's a poster child for do less work
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it'll make you a better athlete how did the coaches manage an athlete who didn't want to
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practice because at the same time like they saw like this guy's really talented like we need him
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so we can't just be like well you know you're off the team because that would be kind of shooting
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themselves in the foot so what did they do it was hard first of all high score is the worst because
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he's your meal ticket and he's your best athlete and he's just not that hard of a worker and they
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let a lot of things slide with him there were times when he was kicked off the team you can't come
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back for two days blah blah blah both times he would quit and come back but mostly you let it
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slide in high school which happens i mean it happened in my high school probably happened in
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your high school the best athletes walk college was a little interesting he shows up at auburn
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and his freshman year first of all he shows up he's the number two running back recruit in the state
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of alabama number one was a guy named alan evans out of enterprise and he was more if you picture
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bo jackson is like jim brown alan evans was more like gail sarah's uh shifty and you know all sorts
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of jukes and everyone was super excited for alan evans while they're a couple days in it's just so
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obvious that bo jackson is at a different level all together that alan evans is quickly forgotten
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and he winds up transferring to ut chattanooga there was a coach early on bo's position coach
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his running back coach who one day grabbed bo jackson by the face mask to give him a lecture
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and bo jackson snapped and said never grab my face mask again and the coach was kind of like
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haha and bo jackson was like i'm telling you do not grab my face mask again and he never did and pat
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die was the head football coach at auburn and he understood like this was my again this is my meal
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ticket this guy probably isn't going to practice as hard as other guys also you know bo jackson played
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college baseball for three years two and a half years at auburn and one of the great motivators for
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him playing baseball was he wouldn't have to have off-season football practices he hated football
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practice hated it so he's able to play baseball which has much easier sort of laid-back practices
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and really embrace that well speaking of before he went to auburn so he was at high school when he
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graduated he was a recruit like people were looking at him for college football but he was getting
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looked at or getting offers from the pros like he actually got drafted by the yankees when he was like
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a senior correct it's a crazy story he's drafted by the yankees and his mom really wants him to be
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the first member of the family to go to a four-year college he had a sibling who went to community
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college that's it and the yankees draft him in the second round which is a high pick and he would
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have been a first round pick if they were sure of it but they weren't because scouts are all over him
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in high school there was a scout from the kansas city royals named kenny gonzalez who was the first on
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the train he's basically sending reports to the royals like this is the best athlete i've ever seen
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this guy's a freak of nature but kenny gonzalez knew bow was going to go to auburn but the yankees
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use a second round pick and after you draft someone you reach out to him and they couldn't find him
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like they would call his house nobody would answer they would knock on his door nobody would answer
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they were doing everything to dodge the yankees the yankees were willing to pay him a boatload of
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money and it was two things number one his mom just didn't want him to go to play professional
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baseball and also auburn had guys watching him and auburn had guys playing sort of playing
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offensive line for him blocking anyone who would dare try to come so they would have someone sit
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with his mom at games and they would have guys talk to bow about you don't want to play in new
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york you don't want to play for the yankees george steinbrenner's evil blah blah blah blah blah so the
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yankees tried and tried and tried but they were never going to get him away from auburn well and the
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other thing too it just seems like he was kind of indifferent to the business of sports like the money
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it didn't seem to phase him all that much well it's funny like i kind of love this the yankees
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offered to send him to new york with his coach his high school coach terry brazil to watch a yankee
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red sox game at yankee stadium and the coach is like bo we should totally do this and bo jackson
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didn't even know the yankees at red sox were rivals like had no idea the only guy in the yankees
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he probably heard of was reggie jackson because of the same last name like he didn't care he wasn't
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impressed he didn't he wasn't sitting home watching the nfl watching major league baseball i probably
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couldn't name 10 nfl players at that point he just didn't care it wasn't his universe so you're right
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he didn't the idea of going to college playing in state being close to his mom those things were
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much more appealing to him than a couple hundred thousand dollars from the yankees but even like as
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you see this as he is professional career advanced money i mean like money was important but it didn't seem
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to be that important like there'd be times where like you know the management would like lay down
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some sort of gauntlet and he'd be like okay i just don't care you just walk away do you think that
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indifference came from just his talent like he just he was so talented he just didn't have to care
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about this stuff yeah also you know there's a there's a line from the movie the aviator when
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howard use played by leonardo dicaprio is in is that a house and he's having dinner with this wealthy
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family and it's catherine hepburn's family and they said the mom of catherine hepburn says
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we don't care about money here and dicaprio goes it's because you have it and like it definitely
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was easy for bo jackson to be indifferent as his career went on because he was making millions and
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millions of dollars from nike and also he had dual full season really full season professional
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football and baseball contracts so he wasn't hurting for money i think it's more interesting
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that a guy who is the national spokesperson for nike really and as big as michael jordan
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didn't really care about attention like he kind of wanted he liked being known as great
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but he certainly didn't need to be signing autographs and appearing at store openings like
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he had very little use for that he didn't like doing that stuff at all no he did not and part of
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it might be the stutter part of it might be the stutter and just this shyness and again like we
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don't talk about this enough in sports but like oftentimes you're taking dirt poor kids largely
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african-american thrusting them into this world and saying all right have a good time swimming
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and it's not a natural transition you know it's just not a natural transition we're gonna take a
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and now back to the show so at auburn he got recruited to play football but he made it a
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contingency that he got to play baseball too because he wanted to and run track and run track
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right so there's three sports which is unheard of today i don't i don't i can't think of any
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college athletes are playing three different sports unless they're at some small you know division three
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college or something during this time at college like what was his career like as a football player
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and baseball player like where did he excel at and were there moments where they're like the legend
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of bo jackson started being cemented yeah well i mean his freshman year at auburn he became you know
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they ran a uh a wishbone so it was uh it was a three back offense and they had a guy named lionel
00:22:20.060
they had a lot of nfl backs there lionel james tommy ag different guys and he was very good as a
00:22:25.160
freshman like excellent as a freshman like freshman all-american freshman but there's you know they
00:22:29.920
played alabama and i think alabama had won the last nine iron bowls the iron bowl was the alabama
00:22:33.940
auburn game and they won this game bow going over the top from the one yard line and bow over the top is
00:22:40.520
legend in alabama it's still legend in alabama it's such legend that people forget like that was in
00:22:46.800
late in the fourth quarter but auburn got the ball back and bow actually fumbled and got the ball back
00:22:51.160
to alabama and they they held on to win but it was close but that moment bow over the top really
00:22:57.620
boosted him from just a guy a really good auburn player to sort of an icon and in baseball so he
00:23:04.780
played his freshman year and the coach was a guy named paul nicks and he was an old school
00:23:10.200
hardcore red ass not a fun guy to play for would berate his players during games on a bullhorn from
00:23:16.160
the dugout and bow decided not to play sophomore year and he came back when hal barrett was named
00:23:21.720
the new coach and bo jackson has a moment his junior year in baseball i mean he would hit these moon
00:23:26.800
shots but there's a the first night game at the university of georgia they installed these lights
00:23:32.700
light poles with lights he never had lights there and it's a first night game auburn alabama and it's
00:23:38.120
a big deal they print up commemorative tickets it's a sold-out stadium vince duly the legendary georgia
00:23:44.740
football coach is there and they do it on purpose auburn alabama and bo jackson's playing in the
00:23:50.260
outfield and the fans are heckling him from behind the fence and his first at bat he grounds out the
00:23:55.840
fans are heckling him and the second at bat he hits a home run that hits the lights like it hits
00:24:03.640
the lights and the place goes silent like silent and this was 39 days before the natural came out
00:24:11.420
where the you know the the robert redford actually hits the lights it hits the lights
00:24:15.880
bo jackson runs back out to the outfield at the end of the inning and they stand all the fans who
00:24:21.460
were really just destroying him stand and start bowing and he ends up hitting two more home runs
00:24:27.840
in that game auburn destroys georgia and his last at bat he only doubles and the fans boo him for just
00:24:35.840
doubling i mean there's like all this great and that game is not on video it's not on tape i interviewed
00:24:40.220
a million different people from it and that was kind of him and that was his his his baseball legend
00:24:45.480
really stems in a lot of ways from that game so he had a great freshman year how did his career pan out
00:24:50.240
the rest of his college career i mean it was more hot and cold than people remember football wise like
00:24:55.300
he got hurt a couple times he definitely got the reputation a little bit of being soft sitting out
00:25:00.960
games he had an injury against tennessee and after the game tennessee was like we just we knew he was
00:25:05.040
soft and we just wanted to get him out of there and they did you know he won the heisman trophy as a
00:25:09.240
senior and he was the presumed front runner from the beginning and it just kept getting closer and
00:25:14.660
closer and closer because people thought he was lazy he got this reputation of being lazy
00:25:19.340
and one of the ugliest i didn't realize it as ugly at the time but a huge moment in that season was
00:25:25.760
sports illustrated did a cover and it was three heisman trophy potential heisman trophy winners
00:25:31.580
it was bow it was chuck long from auburn and then it was joe dudek from division three plymouth state
00:25:38.480
and sports illustrated made the case that joe dudek should win the heisman trophy and you know he had all
00:25:44.280
these stats but he was playing division three and the thing i didn't think about until much later as an
00:25:48.640
adult was the racial component of it here's joe dudek scrappy white guy you know new hampshire
00:25:56.180
works at his dad's store wears the eye paint under his eyes his uniform is always muddy and here's
00:26:03.880
bo jackson african-american everything comes easy to him he doesn't work hard he's just this guy he's
00:26:11.340
lazy and you realize looking back that a lot of these were really racist tropes that bo jackson
00:26:16.880
he wasn't lazy he was just freaking gifted like he wasn't taking plays off he was hurt they he got
00:26:23.220
killed for missing time in another game and it turns out he had some internal bleeding you know
00:26:28.080
like and i just look back at the stereotypes and the cliches of bo jackson and they really make me
00:26:32.840
cringe because he was he was a magnificent college football player and uh how do you end up doing in
00:26:37.360
baseball he was awesome his junior year is one of the best seasons in auburn history and sec history
00:26:42.500
and you know his senior year was going okay not great but okay and then what happened is the
00:26:49.340
tampa bay buccaneers secured the number one pick in the upcoming nfl draft and somehow either via his
00:26:55.920
agent who bo jackson blamed and he shouldn't have had an agent at that time or that's you culverhouse
00:27:00.840
the owner of the buccaneers he thought it was okay to take a flight to tampa to have a physical
00:27:05.300
with the bucks and he flew to tampa this is early in the baseball season and auburn baseball was
00:27:12.100
playing someone that night and the head coach how barrett asked the player where's bo and someone's
00:27:16.560
like yeah he'll be coming he flew to tampa for to meet with the buccaneers and how barrett said he did
00:27:21.700
he did what it's like yeah he flew to tampa and how barrett really knew at that moment that his
00:27:26.680
baseball eligibility was done and it was he couldn't under sec rules you couldn't play or you
00:27:32.400
couldn't negotiate you couldn't do any of that at the time period professional so that ended his
00:27:37.860
baseball career he was furious furious if you want to know the number one reason he didn't sign with
00:27:41.440
the tampa bay buccaneers being drafted number one it's that moment well that's another kind of thing
00:27:46.200
that you talk about too in the book about what college sports was like in the 80s i think sometimes
00:27:50.180
we forget like how how crazy it was right we think college sports is crazy now but there's just so
00:27:55.980
much like crazy scandal stuff going on how did bo jackson handle the the off-field pressures and
00:28:03.020
temptations of college sports in the 80s i mean you have to remember well so he if he had gotten
00:28:08.960
caught it would have been a mistake he basically hired this guy named freeland abbott to be his
00:28:12.020
business manager which is a euphemism for agent so bo was getting money from this guy and getting goods
00:28:17.540
from this guy and you know he wasn't caught and again like i i can never begrudge a kid who grew up in
00:28:25.480
poverty one of ten taking stuff in college it's ridiculous that you couldn't you know it's
00:28:30.220
preposterous so you know that was the thing they had auburn had weird like pat die wrote in his book
00:28:36.020
he's since deceased you know all about the virtues of running a clean program and actually was snorting
00:28:41.160
out loud while reading the book because like they had all these boosters handing players money as they
00:28:46.080
ran off the field they had a whole scheme of how players could sell their tickets to boosters
00:28:51.860
for thousands and thousands of dollars way above face value so you know it was the sec in particular
00:28:58.600
was a wild west back then all these guys are getting or many of these guys are getting paid
00:29:02.140
uh we're having their families taken care of i talked to a guy named chuck clanton who was a safety on
00:29:07.000
that team defensive back on the auburn and he he really wanted to go to florida state and his parents
00:29:13.560
made him go to auburn because auburn was giving him so much money he had no choice
00:29:16.860
so it was a dirty world so jackson finishes collegiate career it was amazing wins the
00:29:23.380
heisman had a great baseball career despite you know having being ineligible at the end of it
00:29:27.580
how did he end up playing both professional baseball and football i imagine that was i mean
00:29:32.840
if i was management of like a football team i was or his management of a baseball team i wouldn't want
00:29:37.440
an athlete i'm paying millions of dollars to potentially to be playing another sport because
00:29:43.060
you might get injured or something else so how did i mean how did he navigate that and how did that
00:29:47.500
happen yeah it's actually kind of a fascinating story everyone assumes he's going to football like
00:29:52.480
everyone assumes he's going to the nfl he's going to be the number one big he's like i'll never sign
00:29:56.060
with the buccaneers and the reaction is yeah okay buddy wait till you get the money of course you're
00:29:59.580
going to sign well he's drafted by the bucks and the buccaneers are convinced he's going to sign
00:30:04.500
with them and he's saying i'm going to wait for the baseball draft and everyone's like okay i'm sure
00:30:08.960
you're going to wait for the baseball draft but he does and the royals have them the royals are all
00:30:15.060
about bo jackson but they can't use a high pick on him because what if he doesn't sign with them what
00:30:19.660
if he does go to the nfl it'd be a hard you can't use a first round pick can't blow it so they wait
00:30:23.960
and wait and wait and finally they get to a later round and art stewart who was the sort of gm at the
00:30:30.340
time or the head of scouting said we're not gonna it's not gonna ruin our franchise if we use this pick
00:30:34.000
and they draft bo and he's all in like he does not want to go to the tampa bay buccaneers he feels
00:30:39.860
like they deliberately ruined his baseball eligibility in college and he negotiates with
00:30:45.040
the royals and he long negotiations and they signed to it they agree to a deal and he has these different
00:30:51.660
out clauses for football in the contract but he's very adamant i'm playing baseball i'm playing baseball
00:30:56.040
he spends his 1986 with the memphis chicks double a most of the season he signs and goes to memphis
00:31:02.760
plays terribly but again at the end is really good gets a in his contract he was guaranteed a
00:31:08.840
call up in september so he's caught up september 1986 not far out of college his first major that
00:31:15.160
got bad is amazing it's one of the best youtube clips ever it's him facing steve carton and beating
00:31:20.000
out a ground ball to second base for a single it's utterly preposterous and he plays his year in
00:31:26.000
baseball and he's always saying don't ask me football questions don't ask me football questions
00:31:30.380
but on the side he's kind of dropping hints to people like you know i'm not saying i won't play
00:31:34.660
football and he had a guy he played football with at auburn named chris woods a wide receiver who
00:31:39.300
actually signed with the raiders and one day bo jackson said to chris woods he said tell al davis
00:31:44.880
if he drafts me i'd be interested so the draft comes around in 87 the bucks loses rights raiders draft
00:31:51.920
him late and they kind of reach out to him and he's interested and the raiders are giddy they're like
00:31:59.220
you can play half a season you can take a month off after baseball is done take your time we'll
00:32:03.380
take you for six games seven games whatever and the royals are livid just livid the team his teammates
00:32:09.780
are furious uh why is this guy getting special treatment this is blah blah blah blah blah but they
00:32:16.040
don't really have a say in it like he has contractual control that he can do this so he
00:32:20.140
goes off and plays for the raiders and how did that mean so i mean when he played for the raiders
00:32:24.260
like how did he manage the friction with the royals i mean was he ever kind of chummy with
00:32:28.640
those guys or was it just you know just business basically he was chummy with a few of them but
00:32:33.780
generally like willie wilson was merciless to the media about how mad he was at bo frank white was
00:32:39.680
clearly mad at bo george brett was one of his closest friends on the team and he wasn't thrilled
00:32:44.020
by it but he was he was supportive he didn't care like he really didn't care and this is to his
00:32:49.940
credit not to it it's not an insult like he was all about his wife he was all about his soon-to-be
00:32:54.320
kids his mom his hometown to a certain degree i don't care if kevin seitzer hates me like why do
00:33:01.060
i care if jim sunberg is mad at me what what how does that impact my life in any negative or positive
00:33:05.420
way whatsoever it is indifferent to me i think it's really impressive i wish i was able to think the
00:33:10.460
way bo jackson thinks about things because i think it's impressive he just didn't care no i actually
00:33:14.480
i that's part i admired about him after i was reading about it there was a moment where
00:33:18.800
he was getting criticized by sports writers on the baseball side that he needed to show more
00:33:24.540
leadership yeah and they said his lack of leadership was shown because he just he didn't get upset
00:33:29.120
after they lost a game like he needed to be more sad and bo jackson was just like why am i going to
00:33:34.440
take that home with me like it's just it was done it's a game you move on i'm not gonna i'm not gonna
00:33:40.400
mope around because i don't want i don't want that around my family yeah you know sports they ask
00:33:46.180
athletes are asked to play roles they're almost asked to be actors i have covered sports for a
00:33:50.360
long time baseball team loses you walk in the clubhouse for post-game interviews it's dead quiet
00:33:54.920
no one can look happy and he's just like he just wasn't that guy i mean he wasn't a joyful he was a
00:34:02.040
pain and he asked for the media he was not good with the media so it's not like i'm saying he was
00:34:05.160
wonderful but like he wasn't going to do your tap dance for you he wasn't just gonna you know put on
00:34:10.620
a hat and a little cane and do a jig for you like he wasn't that guy at all at all in fact he would
00:34:17.020
do the opposite you guys think i'm gonna play football i'm gonna play baseball you guys think i
00:34:21.340
should go to extended spring training no i'm going home to be with my newborn kid i'm not doing it i
00:34:25.540
don't care you're gonna yell at me i don't care i can beat the shit out of you i'm not going to but
00:34:29.420
i don't care he just had that approach to it all and again i find it much much more admirable
00:34:34.380
than i do anything negative about it yeah there's also moments you know after the football season
00:34:39.620
was over or the baseball season or when you know before baseball season started like the royals
00:34:44.340
didn't even have his phone number and so when they were like looking for him they couldn't find
00:34:47.860
him and usually he was like off hunting or fishing or just off with his family doing something it's
00:34:53.340
amazing it's amazing the raiders didn't have his number either so like they asked art shell the head
00:34:57.440
coach when is bow reporting and his answer is i think monday but it might be tuesday or wednesday i'm not
00:35:02.100
sure he kind of intimidated people like people were afraid to confront him he was quiet he was he could
00:35:08.900
definitely be moody he was kind of brooding and like he just wasn't a guy to mess with he made it
00:35:14.660
like example he made it very clear in both sports he did not like signing things for teammates and he
00:35:20.920
really did not like signing things for the other sports so if you were a teammate with the royals
00:35:25.440
and you brought him raider gear he did not want to do that and vice versa if you're on the raiders
00:35:29.960
and guys weren't challenging that like no one was coming up to him being like come on bo don't be an
00:35:35.840
so like they were not challenging that he was a he was a presence you did not want to cross
00:35:40.700
um so i mean during through his career both in football and baseball were there moments
00:35:46.040
like what are the like the key moments you think that just kind of bo jackson became bo jackson the
00:35:50.280
bo jackson with the shoulder pads and baseball batter across the shoulders tech mobile bo jackson
00:35:55.420
we mentioned you know running across the the outfield wall anything else that stands out to you
00:36:00.580
oh yeah bo jackson is made of neon moments it's all neon moments all right in order it's him going
00:36:06.540
over the top against alabama is his first neon moment him winning the heisman trophy is his second
00:36:10.940
neon moment he's a rookie in his first major he got that he beats out a ground ball to second against
00:36:15.560
a hall of fame pitcher steve carlton who later he later admitted he had never heard of he didn't know
00:36:20.200
who he was which is insane in football his big coming out moment is monday night football against the
00:36:25.500
seahawks as a rookie in 87 where he steamrolls brian bosworth but also runs 91 yards for a touchdown
00:36:30.380
and catches a touchdown pass that was a huge moment for him in baseball it's the leading off the 1989
00:36:37.240
all-star game at anaheim with a home run on a picture-perfect day with vin scully and ronald
00:36:44.180
reagan in the booth with the debut of the bow nose the bow diddley ad as a commercial in that during
00:36:50.600
that game like the whole bonus campaign was premiering on the day he led off the all-star
00:36:56.340
game with a home run so the timing was amazing then there's bow running up the wall up and down
00:37:00.800
the wall in baltimore which is amazing funny thing about that the guy who hit the ball joe or slack
00:37:05.040
didn't know until about 10 years ago that he'd been the guy who hit the ball like he hit the ball
00:37:09.660
put his head down was running hard looks up and bo jackson has the ball he didn't know he ran up the
00:37:14.480
wall and then the other big one in baseball obviously is him throwing out harrod reynolds
00:37:18.200
at home plate yeah which is otherworldly and amazing and those are really the iconic iconic
00:37:24.140
him breaking a bat over his head and breaking about over his knee also but those are the iconic
00:37:27.980
moments and the last real iconic moment for bo jackson as a baseball player as a football player
00:37:33.380
is the 1991 playoff game against cincinnati where kevin walker comes from behind and grabs his leg and
00:37:38.500
pulls his hip out of the socket that moment is iconic in its own way well that's the injury that
00:37:43.320
that ended his career correct yep that was it it wasn't it wasn't just like it pulled out of
00:37:49.100
socket like it actually like was it damaged the bone like the bone was degrading yeah so you know
00:37:56.480
he stayed on the sideline for much of the rest of that game the raiders handled it terribly like that
00:38:00.440
guy needed to be in a freaking hospital asap and he wasn't and he went for x-rays the next day and
00:38:05.700
the doctor says shows him and he goes bo do you see all this dark here he's like yeah he goes that is
00:38:09.940
all blood and bo jackson said that's the um it's the only time he remembers he hated needles but
00:38:16.500
the only time he really remembered passing out like almost passing out was a sick sight of all this
00:38:21.560
pooled blood in his body and it became the hip became diseased and yeah he needed a new hip he
00:38:27.860
didn't know at the time but he needed a new hip in the next it's funny the next week so the raiders
00:38:32.460
the following week are going to buffalo to play the bills in the playoffs at buffalo and bo jackson is
00:38:37.960
getting destroyed in the media he's soft he's skipping his heart isn't into it he's not a real
00:38:43.180
football player there's a former raider tight end named todd christensen who just lay it lashed out
00:38:48.140
at him and none of these guys realized that like he was done he could not do it again and that there
00:38:54.660
was all this internal blood pooling and he was there in buffalo they lost 51 to 3 and that was the last
00:39:00.120
time bo jackson was at a uh was at a raiders game as a as a kind of player and what happened to his
00:39:05.800
baseball career well basically what happened is so it's all like a drama it's it's really
00:39:11.220
a kind of sports soap opera from here he has his injury and the royals front office is basically
00:39:19.100
saying man we can told you so like we told you this would happen we knew this would happen like
00:39:25.980
we told you not to play football and you played football this is on you and bo jackson did not
00:39:31.060
respond to that well and he kept the injury kind of quiet the extent of the injury and the
00:39:36.940
seriousness of the injury and he's telling everyone i'm going to report to spring training i'll be there
00:39:40.800
on time and actually the royals he he was up for contract i think it was arbitration at that point
00:39:45.060
and he wound up getting a huge deal one year deal and he reports to spring training with the royals
00:39:50.700
this is spring 91 and he's on crutches and everyone's like whoa and he keeps telling people
00:39:58.160
i'm going to be ready i should be ready i'm very confident i'll return but he really wasn't
00:40:02.260
confident and he was terrified and he was working out in the pool and he was on a bike
00:40:06.320
he couldn't run and he could barely walk and he was on crutches and during spring training while he
00:40:12.680
was in alabama meeting with dr james andrews about steps for his hip the royals released him
00:40:19.120
he wasn't even around they released him it was really classless and they just didn't feel like
00:40:24.660
they had a choice they just didn't feel like they had a choice and he was so mad at the royals
00:40:29.320
and he really had no right to be because he did decide to play football he did get hurt playing
00:40:33.940
football he was useless as a baseball player and people were saying at the time guys it's such a
00:40:39.140
cutthroat business it's not even that cutthroat of a decision why am i going to sign a baseball
00:40:43.580
player when he can't play it doesn't make sense okay so he's cut from the royals but then the
00:40:48.620
white socks decide to take a shot on him and they just sign him to like you know it's a minimal
00:40:53.060
contract but at this point the guy's still on crutches he hasn't had hip replacement surgery
00:40:57.860
yet but the white socks still like you know hey we'll give you a chance we'll we'll work with you
00:41:02.760
they had a trainer uh ron snyder who was um i think ron snyder who was really dogged and really
00:41:08.580
determined and bo jackson he's working out working out working out we're gonna the whole idea was we're
00:41:14.140
gonna strengthen the muscles around the hip so we're gonna do everything we can to strengthen
00:41:18.580
everything around this and they worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and
00:41:24.200
bo jackson kept promising i'm gonna come back i'm gonna come back everyone's like you're not coming
00:41:27.700
back the chicago media was really just dismissive of this whole carnival and he came back he actually
00:41:34.160
came back without a hip replacement and he was you know he was a shell of his former self he
00:41:39.740
couldn't generate the power but 1991 he ended up playing 23 games with the white socks hit three
00:41:46.120
home runs had 14 rbis his first home run came against the yankees neil heaton and it was one
00:41:51.520
of the most emotional moments of his life again he's not a crier and he's not any motor but that moment
00:41:56.260
of hitting that home run was huge for him because he did something nobody thought he could do
00:42:00.860
unfortunately he comes back for spring training in 92 and because of the severity of the injury
00:42:06.440
he's sort of toast and he's he's a shell of his former self he's wobbling all over the hobbling
00:42:11.360
all over the place his one leg is shrunk a little bit so he actually has a leg that's shorter than
00:42:16.360
the other leg and that's when he winds up it's really sad he winds up getting hip replacement
00:42:21.080
everyone thinks he's done and uh he comes back he sits out off 1992 comes back in 1993 and is their dh
00:42:28.000
for a playoff winning team well it was interesting you talk about when he was initially rehabbing his
00:42:33.520
hip before the hip replacement that was like the first time bo jackson actually took training
00:42:38.360
seriously it seemed like he he finally realized like he didn't have that he couldn't rely on his
00:42:44.240
natural talent anymore he had to he had to do something to to get back to where he wanted to be
00:42:48.560
yeah i think it was really good for him like i think you know what i mean i'm not saying that
00:42:53.120
injury is good for him but i think the awareness oh this is what it's like to be craig urback or warren
00:42:59.480
newsom or some journeyman you know this is what it's like to be fighting for a job so you have to
00:43:04.960
really lift weights and you have to swim and you have to exercise you have to sweat and you're going
00:43:08.420
to stay after his family was in alabama he moved in with the chicago trainer herm snyder i said rob
00:43:13.220
snyder it's a comedian herm snyder he literally moved in with him and would go to the ballpark every
00:43:17.660
day and work out the white socks built this enormous pool for bo jackson a rehabilitative pool that sort
00:43:24.460
of created waves and such and he was there every day and he went from a guy who people dismissed as
00:43:30.520
sort of indifferent to a guy who was busting his ass and his comeback in 93 is one of the great
00:43:38.600
i mean people don't talk about it because he was not what he's been i mean in 1993 he had 232
00:43:45.720
16 home runs 45 rbis as a part-time dh it's not a great season but the comeback is one of his
00:43:51.360
crowning achievements of his life because it he was playing with basically your grandma's
00:43:55.680
artificial hip it wasn't a modern artificial hip it was a plastic artificial hip the screws were
00:44:00.680
made of metal they would chip away at the plastic it was dangerous it was it was you know archaic
00:44:06.260
and he came back and was a functioning major league player when did jackson decide to retire from sports
00:44:12.740
completely so he he signed 1994 with the california angels really as a spare part their gm was bill
00:44:20.740
bavese and he said to me he said i'm going to be honest we hired him and we signed him as a circus
00:44:25.340
act like we weren't going to be good he wanted to be out in california blah blah blah blah and 94 he's
00:44:32.280
not very good it's kind of same level he was in 93 i mean he hit higher 279 average 13 home runs
00:44:37.880
and that was a strike year and you know by the end of it all he didn't really like playing with the
00:44:43.200
angels they were not a fun team to play for they weren't very passionate fans i live near here fans
00:44:48.000
here are kind of crappy just indifferent and when the strike came he's basically like you guys
00:44:52.780
wouldn't probably never see me again and he left and he kept his word and he never saw him again he
00:44:57.560
he barely talks to former teammates he never talks to former managers he became kind of reclusive
00:45:03.600
without being he's not a hermit but he sort of became reclusive what does he what does he do like
00:45:08.120
what has he done since then since he's retired from sports i mean all right so he when i say i actually
00:45:13.120
i take that back a little he's a spring training instructor sometimes for the white socks and royals
00:45:16.920
and there's actually an endearing clip of him speaking to i think it was adam larosa's son
00:45:22.040
during a white socks spring training explaining to him who he was and he's like have you ever heard
00:45:26.940
of a thing called the heisman trophy and the kid's like yeah he's like i won that he's run a bunch of
00:45:32.060
businesses he tried acting a little bit he was in some mediocre movies he was in a gene hackman movie
00:45:36.460
he was actually pretty good in it he's run like different food companies food distribution companies
00:45:41.240
he lives in suburban chicago he shovels his own driveway he drives his own ford truck he likes
00:45:48.460
hunting he loves barbecuing he's just a guy yeah when the uvaldi tragedy happened he paid for a lot
00:45:55.100
of the funerals very quietly he runs a charity every year bike race called bow bikes bama that started
00:46:01.180
after one of the hurricanes years ago he gives a lot of money he's prickly he's ornery he's not the best
00:46:06.220
at card shows he can be a pain in the ass but he's also endearing and lovable and just happy being a
00:46:12.140
dad and a grandpa yeah like the way you describe like he just didn't really he's like oh sports
00:46:16.660
that's something i did and that's it like he didn't like he doesn't reminisce about the old days he's not
00:46:22.220
sad he just it's that same bo jackson like what was really important to him was was family i mean
00:46:27.640
that seems like that was like family was really important to this guy all throughout his life
00:46:30.680
very much so i mean you have to remember he grew up with a single mom rejected by his father in
00:46:36.680
poverty and now he has a wife he loves and he has these three kids who he loves and he's just endearing
00:46:43.240
in that way he's endearing not being endearing like again you don't you don't want to approach
00:46:48.220
bo jackson while he's eating at a restaurant you don't it's not going to be a good scene he's not
00:46:52.620
going to scream at you but he's going to give you the look of death and tell you to walk away probably
00:46:56.560
but he does the important things well he plays a lot of golf too that's not important he plays a
00:47:01.940
lot of golf he's just a likable his life is likable i think it's much cooler than if you
00:47:07.680
were hosting a podcast right now you know talking about his old memories and if he was arguing why
00:47:13.480
he should be in the hall of fame like he doesn't give a crap yeah this doesn't give a crap it's the
00:47:17.080
best i love that he doesn't give a crap so i mean after researching writing about his life what are
00:47:21.380
the big takeaways or life lessons i think one is just like don't care don't don't take this stuff so
00:47:25.740
seriously because it's not that important in the long run i imagine that's one lesson right
00:47:29.280
i think that's a huge one i also think if you want to go a little deeper and this doesn't
00:47:33.500
i don't think he bemoans it but just because you have a gift doesn't mean you you can't just coast
00:47:41.060
on your gift like he probably coasted on his gift like he could have been a much better baseball
00:47:47.400
player like a much much much better base he had mike trout talent mickey manor talent but he didn't
00:47:55.180
really want to go to fall league and hang out with prospects and he didn't really want to do that
00:48:01.460
stuff and the good news is he doesn't care in hindsight he's not upset about it but i think
00:48:05.260
the bad news is he could have he could have been a mickey manor or dave winfield or someone like that
00:48:10.300
but he didn't he didn't really work at it hard enough i don't think do you think it was a mistake
00:48:14.800
to play two sports like spreading yourself too thin is that a lesson it's a good question i mean
00:48:20.060
not for him because i think he did exactly what he wanted right i think if you have if you do it you
00:48:25.620
really have to think it out i think in this day in this day and age where people are much more
00:48:29.620
intelligent about physiology and sort of how the body works and recovery recovery time
00:48:34.680
you know health nutrition intake it'd probably be better designed back then it really was all right
00:48:42.400
baseball season's done i'm gonna take a couple weeks off then i'll play football football season's done
00:48:46.300
all right i'll nap a little bit then i'm gonna play baseball like the constant abuse on the body
00:48:50.940
without really thinking enough about the body but not he didn't have a personal trainer throughout
00:48:55.240
those times giving him sort of maintenance tips uh i think that would have helped a lot or yeah you
00:49:00.820
just put ice on it like if it hurts ice that's it right well jeff this has been a great conversation
00:49:06.500
where can people go to learn more about the book and your work i'm on that awful thing called twitter
00:49:10.560
at jeff perlman and my website jeffperlman.com and the book is available
00:49:14.480
where you know all book buying platforms fantastic well jeff perlman thanks for your time it's been a
00:49:19.420
pleasure yeah thank you so much my guest today was jeff perlman he's the author of the book the last
00:49:24.780
folk hero the life and myth of bo jackson it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere
00:49:28.920
you can find more information about his work at his website jeffperlman.com also check out our
00:49:33.160
show notes at aom.is slash bo where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic
00:49:37.500
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at
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00:49:52.100
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