Jackson left a legacy, friends
He’ll remember the gags. The time Vincent Jackson told him he wanted to transfer to CU. The autograph seekers in Montana who refused to let him go. The bachelor party in Palm Springs where he picked up every tab. The drunk guy at the ViewHouse bar.
“Hey man, you’re Vincent Jackson,” the kid stammered, six sheets to the wind, as he stumbled up to the three-time Pro Bowl receiver.
“No,” Jackson replied. “I’m not.”
(He was.)
“Yeah, you are.”
The guy got out his phone and swiped over to a picture.
“Hey, man. You’re Vincent Jackson.”
Flanked by Tony Lee, his good friend and former coach, Jackson walked away.
The guy grabbed him.
“I nearly choked the kid within an inch of his life,” Lee recalled. They got the heck out of there. “Hey,” Jackson asked his friend. “Why did you do that?”
“He touched you,” Lee said. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”
Lee and Jackson, one of the best Colorado natives ever to suit up in the NFL, were roomies in Greeley for three years. Lee went to Doherty High School in Colorado Springs before playing and coaching at UNC; Jackson starred at Widefield High.
“He understood that he was something cool,” Lee said Tuesday of Jackson, the former UNC Bears star who was found dead in a Florida hotel room on Monday at the age of 38. “He didn’t flaunt it, but he understood it. He would let people be a part of it.
“You’d reach out and tell him, ‘My kids are a fan of you,’ and the next thing you know, they’d get a box of signed stuff. He knew, coming from UNC, that he wasn’t surrounded by NFL people, that we were all in awe. He let us bask in that. He could’ve moved on and big-timed us. He was the exact polar opposite of that.
“I’m devastated. It feels like a dream, you know? Our relationship transitioned from me being the big brother to him being the big brother. He was someone who made it. And he was looking out for me.”
He’ll remember the foundation. Jackson grew up the son of military parents, a childhood spent on the move. He was raised on the virtues of grinding, of earning your keep. He worked
as a cook. A pizza-maker. He cleaned hotel rooms.
Lee knew of Jackson since the young man was 14, a gifted but 5-foot-5-ish freshman in high school who was already turning heads at local track meets. Three years later, Jackson had grown 11 inches. When he came up for a recruiting visit to Greeley, Lee was his host.
“He was a straight-A student and told me, ‘I think I’m going to Mines,’” Lee said. “And I said, ‘No, you’re not, because I’m going to be in trouble.’”
He’ll remember the rise. Jackson almost transferred to CU in 2003, following his sophomore season at UNC. How crazy would that have been?
“But he didn’t do it,” Lee said, laughing again. “Thank God. Thank. God. His junior year, he exploded onto the scene.”
One time, Jackson nearly missed the team the bus after a game at Montana. They couldn’t get him off the field. Autograph-seekers did a better job of swarming Big No. 81 than the Grizzlies’ defense.
“He was larger than life, with a humble personality,” said Lee, who runs a home remodeling business in Highlands Ranch these days. “You wouldn’t see a grad assistant living with players (now), because most players aren’t mature enough to keep themselves out of trouble. But Vincent was an old soul. You’d come home, that dude would be cleaning the house. He wasn’t like us, acting like idiots.”
Before his senior season, the Bears held a secret ballot for team captains. Jackson was almost a unanimous choice. Lee said UNC coach Kay Dalton looked stunned after the coaches finished the count.
“Kay said, ‘He can’t be a captain,’” Lee recalled. “’He doesn’t talk.’
“And he didn’t. He just led by example. But he’s the best offensive player in that university’s history.”
Jackson left UNC as the program’s all-time leader in career receiving yards (3,548) and receiving touchdowns (37). Over 12 NFL seasons with the Chargers and Bucs, he managed to amass at least 1,000 receiving yards in six of them.
He also saw football as a job. A platform for bigger issues. Jackson invested in restaurants. He mentored younger players about life during and after pro football. He wrote children’s books with his wife. His “Jackson In Action 83 Foundation” sponsored military families in greater Tampa.
If he didn’t give dollars, he gave time. When Lee was a team coordinator at the YMCA in Glendale, Jackson came to speak to his kids. Lee’s children called him “Uncle Vincent.”
Lee’s son Theodore is 11, “and there’s never been a time in his life where he hasn’t had a Vincent Jackson jersey,” the former coach said.
He’ll remember the golf. The hours on the course when they managed to escape from chores, deadlines, responsibilities and the real world. Lee drove the cart. Jackson was the DJ.
“(Jackson) hit the ball to the moon,” Lee said. “I’ll miss hearing stories about his kids. His oldest son, Carter, was coming into his own as an athlete. That’s probably the most heart-breaking, is your little babies not having a daddy.”
He’ll remember the heartache. Lee said that he knew Jackson had “been through some things” recently and had gone missing. A mutual acquaintance texted him a few days earlier to say that Jackson had been found safe and “just wanted some personal space.”
A short while later, that same acquaintance got a text that Jackson was gone.
“It’s complicated,” Lee said. He paused.
“I think we’re all human. But I don’t think the last four days can define a man who lived the way he had for 38 years.”