Bo Jackson.Photo: Ron Vesely/Getty, Mike Powell/Allsport/Getty
WithBo Jackson, you really had to be there.
In the late 1980s, Jackson exploded onto the scene as the most exciting young player in two major sports: football and baseball. He was the best pure athlete most American sports fans had ever seen.
Almost immediately, he became the subject of tall tales. On the football field, his highlight reel runs looked like the product of a video game cheat code. On the baseball diamond, he made spectacular catches in the outfield, and it was said the ball soundeddifferentcoming off his bat.
Off the field, Nike designed its “Bo Knows” ad campaign around him, in which he’s famously pictured wearing football shoulder pads while holding a baseball bat, every muscle in his Greek God physique accentuated.
Then, suddenly, he became mortal again: While playing for the Los Angeles Raiders, Jackson suffered a devastating hip injury in a playoff game in 1991, ending his football career and robbing him of his explosiveness in baseball. He bounced around Major League Baseball for a few years as a journeyman, but the phenomenon was over.
PEOPLE:Bo Jackson hasn’t played a pro sports game since 1994. Why a book on him now?
Jeff Pearlman:He’s the greatest athlete of all time. I looked at my kids and my kids' friends and thought, “None of these kids are gonna know about Bo Jackson.” When you have the greatest athlete of all time, he’s worthy of remembering.
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He won back-to-back state decathlons [in high school] in Alabama. He stole 90 of 91 bases [attempted in high school]. He could’ve been an Olympic sprinter. He was the No. 1 pick in football, and he could’ve been the No. 1 pick in baseball [had he not joined the NFL]. He’d play an entire baseball season, take two weeks off, and then run for 100 yards in an NFL game. It’s preposterous.
PEOPLE:What was Bo’s personality like? To what degree, if any, did that contribute to the aura surrounding him?
PEOPLE:Are there any athletes today who can match Bo for his folkloric, larger-than-life qualities?
Jeff Pearlman.Courtesy of Jeff Pearlman
JP:Shohei Ohtani[the Los Angeles Angels star pitcher and slugger]. Maybe the French basketball player coming into the NBA [Victor Wembanyama]. I’ve heard more and more about him: “Did you see so and so?”
But it won’t last, because he’ll come into the league and we’ll see him on Twitter 1,000 times a night.
PEOPLE:What’s your favorite Bo Jackson story, real or apocryphal?
Now, maybe if there was a video camera there, like there would be today, you learn the ball hit a tree or something. But in the mythological, Paul Bunyan-esque world of Bo Jackson, it happened.
source: people.com
