When USC made John Robinson its coach, he was an assistant for the Raiders. He’d heard about an intense running backs coach at Illinois.
“We’ll get together and talk,” Robinson told John Jackson. “I’ve got some questions about you.”
“I’ve got some questions about you, too,” Jackson replied.
“From that point on,” Robinson said Friday, “I knew he was my guy.”
Jackson was the guy for a lot of people.
He passed away Thursday night, at 81, but he lived plural sporting lives, mostly outside the frame. Heisman Trophy winners and boxing champions and cable-TV technologies kept following Jackson around.