Vincent Bo Jackson

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. Jackson overcame poverty by working hard, excelling at multiple sports, and staying out of trouble.

Jackson worked extremely hard to get to his current position in life. He practiced non stop it seemed like. In high school, college, and throughout the pros, Jackson worked to get better at baseball, football, and track. He was able to work hard and become a star at all three. It helped that Jackson loved to be around the games, as a kid he and other neighborhood kids would play “stickball”, a form a baseball using a tree branch and a beat up tennis ball. As a teenager he would be working out or practicing constantly at his high school trying to get better (Jackson and Schaap 43).

Not only did Jackson work hard, he had great work ethic throughout his career. He was the kind of ballplayer who was the first one to the field, even before the coaches, and the last one to leave the field. Jackson was born with great athletic ability, but that can only go so far for an athlete. Jackson got the rest of his ability from his great work ethic. Every homerun, and touchdown he got, and every track race he won was earned through his work and dedication toward the game. He was not the great athlete who could just show up and score two touchdowns or hit a homerun (Jackson and Schaap 50). Jackson's coaches saw how hard he worked and the greatness he possessed because of it, and they knew he could make it far in the sp...

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...alf seconds. If Jackson did not change his view of life, work hard at everything he did, and excel at sports, who knows where he would be today. He could be sitting in a jail cell because he never changed his ways and lost his temper, or he could still be living in a small house in a small town. Jackson decided that he did not want to do that, and that he wanted his family to be free from a live full of poverty.

Works Cited

Benson, Alvin K. “Bo Jackson.” The Eighties in America. Ed. Berman Milton. 3 vols. Salem Press, 2008. Salem History.

Jackson, Bo and Dick Schaap. Bo Knows Bo: The Autobiography of a Ballplayer. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Print

“Jackson, Bo.” World Book Advanced. World Book, 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.

Ozanian, Mike. “Bo Jackson, Entrepreneur.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 1 Feb.14.Web. 31 Mar. 2014.