Jackson credits mom for pushing academics
Bo Jackson gained fame as a star in major league baseball and the NFL, but he told the winners at the annual Dispatch- Motorists Insurance Group scholar- athlete awards dinner Wednesday night that it was his mother who put him on the proper path.
That’s because as he was growing up in Bessemer, Alabama, he wanted to play sports but wanted little to do with books. His mom told him he couldn’t do the former without doing the latter. He got his act together academically.
“Then good things happened for me,” Jackson, 54, said.
A multi- sport star in high school, he went on to Auburn and won the 1985 Heisman Trophy as one of the greatest running backs to ever play the game.
He was on his way to blazing a trail as a star in both the NFL with the Los Angeles Raiders and in baseball with the Kansas City Royals before a hip injury in a playoff game in the 1990 NFL season ended that part of the career and shortened his baseball career to only three more years.
“I look at everything I have done since high school as a learning experience, because it has prepared me for what I am doing now,” said Jackson, who is a co-owner of a bank in suburban Chicago and a growing chain of athletic training facilities, including one in Hilliard.
He also does a great amount of philanthropic work.
“I am in a happy place right now,” Jackson said.
Mitchell Bergman of Hartley, one of the $10,000 major scholarship winners, appreciated Jackson’s words.
“He was an absolutely incredible athlete, someone you want to take after, for sure,” said Bergman, who is headed to Ohio State to play soccer. “Just the way he spoke about the passion, the dedication he implemented toward sports is something I want to strive for, not only in high school but also at the next level at Ohio State.”
Jackson applauded the scholar- athletes honored Wednesday night, and told them they now have a responsibility, that they’re headed to college and probably away from home without parents watching over them.
“You’ve got to mature from a young teenager to a young, responsible adult,” Jackson said.
Audrey Grammel, Columbus Academy; Mitchell Bergman, Hartley Anna Schildmeyer, Upper Arlington; Matthew Seimer, Jonathan Alder
Tessa Medrano, Village Academy; Maxwell Hall, Olentangy Elizabeth Fee, Pickerington Central Lakewood softball
Blaine Hafen,
Avery DeLong, Circleville; Brooke Kauchak, Granville; Valentina Martin, Pleasant; Hannah Moulton, Thomas Worthington; Connor Hall, Marysville; Michael Ray, Whetstone; Anthony Salmeron, DeSales; Evan Yakubov, St. Charles Kaleb Wesson, Westerville South India Johnson, Hilliard Davidson Lakewood