Have you ever had big dreams of playing football or baseball for the National Football League or Major League Baseball? Many young kids have this dream but not many attain their dreams. Vincent Edward Jackson better known as Bo Jackson is one of the few men who achieved the goal of getting to play not only one, but both of those sports at the same time. He was born on November 30, 1962 in Bessemer, Alabama. Bo is the son of A.D. Adams and Florence Bond. Bo was one of 10 children in the family. He graduated from McAdory High School and attended Auburn University. Bo Jackson is a phenomenal multi-sport athlete participating in three sports while attending college and two in the professional leagues. Bo was a running back with the Auburn Tigers …show more content…
and Los Angeles Raiders. He played baseball as a right fielder for Auburn University, Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and California Angels. While Bo had a very successful time in College sports as well as professional sports, he held high records within track and field in his early High School days as well. While in high school, Bo was recruited to play professional baseball for the New York Yankees.
He decided to decline the offer to attend college at Auburn University. Bo Jackson played football for the Auburn University Tigers in Auburn, Alabama. He was Auburn’s running back from 1982 through 1985. Bo Jackson’s skill as a running back was noticed while playing on Auburn University’s football team. Bo’s senior year in college he was awarded the Heisman Trophy as college football’s finest player. (Gale) Also while playing at Auburn University, he and his team won the Sugar Bowl. This was just the beginning of his football …show more content…
career. In addition to Bo’s success on the football field, he became well known for his overly athletic baseball roll. In 1983 Bo started in 26 baseball games playing left field position. He scored four home runs during his first college baseball season. Bo sat out from playing baseball in 1984 to run Track and Field at Auburn University. The following year he hit 17 homeruns and led his team in runs scored with 55 (UPI). Bo was a talented track and field athlete. While in high school, Bo Jackson competed as a jumper, thrower, sprinter, hurdler and decathlete. Bo won the state decathlon twice and the 100-meter dash during his high school career. He qualified for the NCAA nationals in the 100-meter dash in his freshman and sophomore years. “Jackson’s speed qualified him for the U.S. Olympic Team for track and field, but he pursued football and baseball instead.” (ESPN). Bo decided not to pursue a career in Track and Field because he felt he could earn more money in the NFL or MLB. Bo’s senior year of college he was recruited by both football and baseball scouts.
He opted to play baseball and in 1986 Bo Jackson was drafted to the Kansas City Royals. Bo Jackson played for the Kansas City Royals from 1986 to 1990. He played right fielder for the Royals. Per Stewart, “Bo Jackson made the greatest defensive play in Royals history!” He caught a ball that bounced off the wall in the outfield and turned and threw the ball to the catcher who tagged the player out at home plate. He earned the All-Star Game MVP in 1989. In 1987, Bo Jackson was drafted as a running back to the Los Angeles Raiders. He played for the Raiders for four seasons. Bo Jackson signed a contract that allowed him to play the entire baseball season and then would report to the Raiders once the season was
over. Howard Bryant claims, “Bo Jackson became the first two-sport professional athlete of the modern era, playing both baseball and football.” He is also listed as one of ten football players who had an enormous effect on how football is viewed today. (Bryant) ESPN’s Sport Science named former Auburn Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson the “Greatest Athlete of All Time” (Erickson 1983) According to ESPN, Jackson is the only athlete to ever make the All-Star Game in two major sports. (Bryant) A famous quote from Bo Jackson is, “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” (Stewart). Bo Jackson is a phenomenally talented multi-sport athlete. There will never be another athlete like him that can excel in multiple professional sports. Today’s “sports world” is too selfish to share an athlete’s talents with more than one team. Their primary concern is their team’s success. They want all a player’s time and energy put into making them the best athlete for their team and not for another team or sport.
He did very well in all of these sports and won many trophies. He went on to play football for the Honolulu
In 1972, he had a Passer Rating of 157.5 in a game. A rare perfect rating would be 158.3. In 1973, he had an amazing season where he brought the Broncos to their first ever winning season. That season he earned a First Team All-AFC, led the AFC in touchdown passes, and earned the Broncos offensive MVP. In 1974, he led the NFL in yards per pass attempt with 8.1 yards. In 1975, he played his final season and retired. He became the Broncos quarterback coach for the 1976 season, then retired from that right after. In 1977, the Broncos went to their first super bowl, the year after Charley Johnson retired. He ranks 7th in most touchdowns by a Broncos quarterback, and 9th in most yards. In 1986, Charley Johnson was inducted into the Broncos Ring of Fame.
Brett Favre grew up idolizing a pair of Southern quarterbacks, the Saints' Archie Manning and the Cowboys' Staubach. He grew up in Kiln, Mississippi and went to high school in there. His high school, Hancock North Central, honored him this past May by re-naming the field, 'Brett Favre Field,' and unveiling a life-sized statue of the quarterback at the stadium's entrance. The school previously had retired his jersey, Number 10, in 1993. He stayed in the south to go to college where he went to Southern Miss. He became the starter at Southern Miss in his third game of his freshman season. Favre majored in special education. He led his Southern Mississippi team to 29 victories, including two bowl victories, during his four varsity seasons, 1987-90, and climaxed his collegiate career by earning a MVP award in the East-West Shrine game featuring the nation's best seniors. Favre set school records for passing yards (8,193), pass attempts (1,234), completions (656), completion percentage (53.2), touchdowns (55), and with only 35 interceptions. His production included five 300-yard passing games and five 3-TD performances, while his 7,695 regular-season passing yards ranked him among the top 30 of all-time NCAA passers. His 1.57 interception ratio in 1988 was the lowest among the 50 top-ranked passers in the nation, and his 2.9 interception rate for his four-year career also ranks as one of the best in NCAA history. Also he was the MVP of the All-American Bowl at the conclusion of his senior year. All those records and stats and that was only in college!!!
...voted an All-American and served as co-captain in both the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl.” (http://www.hickoksports.com/biograph/huffsam.shtml) After attending West Virginia University for four years and being a key member on their football team, Huff’s talent took him further than the college level of football. His athletic ability made it possibly for him to have a shot in the National Football League. Huff was drafted in the third round of the 1956 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. Huff continued his professional football career with the New York Giants until 1964 when the Washington Redskins offered him almost twice as much pay as the New York Giants did. Huff then retired in 1968.
Martin, Vince. "Why Bo Jackson Is the Greatest Athlete Ever." Yahoo Contributor Network. Yahoo, 12 Sept. 2006. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
You Think you Know Bo, but you don't Know. Bo? Bo knows what it is like to be called one of the greatest athletes of all time. Vincent “Bo” Jackson had to overcome a lot as a child, he was the eighth of ten children that his mom took care of. His family was very poor, and not knowing his father very well did not help the cause.
Jackie Robinson, born Jack Roosevelt Robinson, is known for being the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball. He was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia as the grandson of a slave. He was the youngest of five children and at six months old his father left them. At this time, because it was so hard for African-Americans in the south, his mother Mallie Robinson decided to move them to Pasadena, California where it was easier for African-Americans to live and find jobs.
Mr. Jackson played six seasons (twice as long as the average National Football League career), from 2002 to 2008, with the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos, mostly at tight end. He managed to escape with some brain cells intact. He’s that unicornlike rarity among former football players: He can write.
The best day he had was also his last. On May 2, 1863, at Chancellorsville, T.J.
A. Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to ever play in the Major League Baseball.
After his discharge, Robinson briefly returned to football. This team was in Los Angeles Bulldogs. Then he accepted an offer to Sam Huston College in Austin, to be athletic director. The job also including coaching the basketball team and Robinson even resorted to inserting himself into the lineup for exhibition games. His teams were outmatched by opponents; Robinson was respected as a disciplinarian
"Oregon Sports Hall of Fame." Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.
Like what was said above, he was a humble superstar that did not want to be only one kind of person. He did not want to be stuck being good at only one thing. He wanted to be great at it all. His talent had people believing that he could really do anything. He had an opponent one game that, leading up to it, trashed talked about how Bo was never going to get past him. Once Bo got the ball, he ran towards the defender and instead of stopping, he ran straight through him and threw him to the ground to score a fantastic touchdown. Fast forward a few years and he needed a hip replacement due to a bad injury while playing football. He, at the time, was focusing on baseball and he told everyone that he would be back to play. When out of the surgery, he began rehab right away, and was back in the ballpark shortly after. Bo naturally established himself as
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was born on January 21, 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia. When Jackson turned two years old, his older sister died of typhoid fever. His father, Jonathan Jackson died of the same disease a short time later, leaving his wife, Julia Neale Jackson, with three children and immense amounts of debt. Julia Jackson remarried in 1830 to a man who supposedly disliked his stepchildren. Thomas Jackson and his siblings were sent to live with various relatives due to this mutual disliking between the children and their new stepfather. The future Civil War hero was raised by an uncle in the town of Jackson’s Mill, which is located in present-day West Virginia. In 1842, Jackson enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Older
Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer, serving as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was born July 2, 1908 in Baltimore,MD. Thurgood Marshall was a descendant from slaves from both sides of his family. Thurgood also known as “Thoroughgood” was his original name but he shortened it to his known name Thurgood. Thurgood’s father William Marshall worked as a railroad porter, and his mother Norma worked as teacher. As a young boy Thurgood’s mother and father instilled in him an appreciation for the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of law. Marshall went to Henry Highland Garnet School as a kid then, attended at Frederick Douglass High School, and was placed in a class with really smart kids. Marshall graduated in 1925 with a B-grade average, Marshall placed