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very nice read on these 2 guys.
Bo Jackson, Brian Bosworth reunite, recall 1987 Raiders-Seahawks game
"Hey, old man, what's up?"
These are the words that burst out of Brian Bosworth's mouth the moment Bo Jackson appears in a doorway of a small office inside The Hotel at Auburn University. As soon as a smiling Bosworth can extricate himself from behind a cramped conference table, Bo and the Boz embrace for the very first time since their infamous collision on the goal line in Seattle during an iconic Monday Night Football game some 27 years ago.
Heading into that night, Nov. 30, 1987, when the troubled and insolent Bosworth promised to shut down the explosive, electrifying Jackson, the game had spun into an epic showdown between two of the most popular rookies in NFL history. To some extent, it was good versus evil, talent versus talk, offense versus defense, the greatest athlete of all time versus the game's greatest villain.
After two storied carries, though, the great rivalry was over. In the second quarter, Bo blew past Boz in the open field for a spectacular 91-yard touchdown. In the second half, Jackson took a handoff near the goal line, moved to his left, cut toward the end zone and bulldozed Bosworth for his third score of the night on his way to a Monday Night Football-record 221 rushing yards.
That night was the birth of Bo and the end of the Boz.
Bo Bikes Bamacharity bike ride, an event that in its first three years raised nearly $1 million and helped build 57 storm shelters throughout Bo's home state. Jackson started the event a year after a deadly outbreak of tornadoes wreaked havoc on Alabama in 2011.
ESPN: In 2012, when Bo Bikes Bama started, that must have been hard seeing that kind of devastation up close for five straight days.
Bo: Every day on that first ride, I shed tears somewhere along the route. But I wore shades, and I rode up front, so nobody could see me. It was just so emotional because everywhere I rode, I thought, "That could have been my family. That could have been people that I know and love." Go anywhere in this state, and talk to anybody, and they'll know somebody who lost their house or their kids or their business to the tornado. On that first ride, I stopped at one neighborhood, and there were four generations of a family sitting there on all that was left of their home: a concrete slab. The tornado picked up the grandmother's house and took it a quarter-mile, and she fell out of the house when it was in the air. She was 150 yards out in the field. That's where her son and grandson found her after the storm -- in the field. They were just sitting out there. Just to see the people and the devastation up close like that, you don't ever forget that. There just aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week for me to do all that I want to do to help people like that.
That's what brought you guys back together after so long. Can you believe it's been 27 years since your Monday Night Football game? It was kind of a defining moment for both of you -- good and bad.
Boz: It doesn't define either one of us. I think what it defined is people's mindset, their perceptions and their expectations of what people wanted to see. It's so hard to go into any profession, especially sports, with expectations that are larger than life. It makes it impossible. It's a qualifiable unknown that you are always chasing. And you can't ever put your arms around it. You try so hard, with all your heart and soul and passion, and the last thing I, or any professional athlete, ever wants to do is disappoint anybody. But when you don't live up to expectations -- whether it's the fans', the coaches' or especially our own -- it hurts. I know.
Jameis Winston. He grew up 20 minutes from where I grew up in Alabama. And it's ironic: He won the Heisman, he was the first player picked and he was selected by Tampa Bay. Those are exactly my footsteps. That's weird. And the running back from Wisconsin, Melvin Gordon.
Wait. Really? You don't watch football at all?
Bo: I've never been a fan to where I'm gonna sit and watch a football game. My wife makes me come down and watch Auburn games with her because our two youngest kids are here. But the only place where I can find some peace and quiet is on the sideline. So I have to watch the game. But I used to just drive my wife over and drop her off at the stadium and then go to the country club and play golf.
Bosworth admits he was Darth Vader to Jackson's Luke Skywalker in their playing days. Mary Lou Davis photo
What do you guys like and dislike about today's game?
Boz: I don't like that the defense can't be physical, and they have to adjust their physicality during the course of the play. Not prior to or after but actually during the play. They have to figure out a way to adjust their approach to the hit, which, to me, changes a key ingredient and a part of the philosophy of playing defense. Everything is spread out so far now. Kids today are not taught the fundamentals of the game: how to block and tackle. We were taught back in the day how to do the simple things first before we moved on to, "OK, let's spread this thing way out all over the place, throw it every down, run a track meet and try to score 65 points in every game."
Bo: I was taught [to] go out [and] play hard-nose, ugly football. Then you look good after you win. Guys are doing too much celebrating on a simple tackle.
Boz: Or a first down.
Bo: Celebrating like they won the game, like those linemen celebrating because they made a tackle who jumped around and tore their knee? All this excessive celebrating with today's players, that's one of the reasons I don't watch it. I also don't like all the new rules the NFL is putting in to play. I think it's good from the standpoint of PTSD with players, but if they continue to make the game softer and softer and softer, hell, they might as well play flag football.
Boz: Yeah. Or soccer.
Bo: One thing I wouldn't let my kids do for all the tea in China is this "Friday Night Tykes" thing. The show where they got these little kids playing football and hitting like they're in the NFL? These kids' brains aren't even half developed, and they're out tackling and getting concussions at 9 and 10 years old ... and the parents are sitting up in the stands cheering?
Jackson hit 22 home runs for the Royals in 1987, the same year he made his NFL debut. He wound up playing eight seasons in the major leagues. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
Boz: The parents are the ones pushing it.
Bo: These parents are living vicariously through their kids. When this kid is turning 15 or 16 years old, this kid is not gonna know his name, he's not gonna know how to get home from school. And they're letting these guys coach these kids who have never played football outside of high school? That's like NASA telling one of us, "Why don't you come and fly this space shuttle next week?"
How do you guys want people to remember you?
Bo: I can say we were both good for the game, but the game was great for us. It has opened so many doors for me, and I'm quite sure it has done the same for Brian. It has allowed us to see another side of life outside of sports.
Boz: Football is so great. Once it was over for me, I went through a dark period in the 1990s, when I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, all because I didn't get a chance to complete what I started. As I got older, I started to understand -- I was grateful for the journey I was on. I was grateful despite how it turned out. Whether the journey ended up the way I wanted it to or it didn't, I was grateful for football. We are grateful that we have had the opportunities and the blessings, and it's not just all about us but the people who led us to get there -- the coaches, the people, the teammates who supported us and pushed us along the way. I can see what Bo is saying, the way so many kids now are disconnected from the honor and the responsibilities that it is to be able to call yourself a football player.
Bo: It's not about you, once you get to this level. It's not about how many millions you make or how big your house is or the cars you got. It's about, at the end of the day, what are you going to do to help your fellow man? Period. What are you going to do to give back and make a difference in somebody else's life? That's how you end up being measured; that's what it's all about. That's what we're doing here with Bo Bikes Bama. It's like Maya Angelou said: How can you be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud?
Bo Jackson, Brian Bosworth reunite, recall 1987 Raiders-Seahawks game
"Hey, old man, what's up?"
These are the words that burst out of Brian Bosworth's mouth the moment Bo Jackson appears in a doorway of a small office inside The Hotel at Auburn University. As soon as a smiling Bosworth can extricate himself from behind a cramped conference table, Bo and the Boz embrace for the very first time since their infamous collision on the goal line in Seattle during an iconic Monday Night Football game some 27 years ago.
Heading into that night, Nov. 30, 1987, when the troubled and insolent Bosworth promised to shut down the explosive, electrifying Jackson, the game had spun into an epic showdown between two of the most popular rookies in NFL history. To some extent, it was good versus evil, talent versus talk, offense versus defense, the greatest athlete of all time versus the game's greatest villain.
After two storied carries, though, the great rivalry was over. In the second quarter, Bo blew past Boz in the open field for a spectacular 91-yard touchdown. In the second half, Jackson took a handoff near the goal line, moved to his left, cut toward the end zone and bulldozed Bosworth for his third score of the night on his way to a Monday Night Football-record 221 rushing yards.
That night was the birth of Bo and the end of the Boz.
Bo Bikes Bamacharity bike ride, an event that in its first three years raised nearly $1 million and helped build 57 storm shelters throughout Bo's home state. Jackson started the event a year after a deadly outbreak of tornadoes wreaked havoc on Alabama in 2011.
ESPN: In 2012, when Bo Bikes Bama started, that must have been hard seeing that kind of devastation up close for five straight days.
Bo: Every day on that first ride, I shed tears somewhere along the route. But I wore shades, and I rode up front, so nobody could see me. It was just so emotional because everywhere I rode, I thought, "That could have been my family. That could have been people that I know and love." Go anywhere in this state, and talk to anybody, and they'll know somebody who lost their house or their kids or their business to the tornado. On that first ride, I stopped at one neighborhood, and there were four generations of a family sitting there on all that was left of their home: a concrete slab. The tornado picked up the grandmother's house and took it a quarter-mile, and she fell out of the house when it was in the air. She was 150 yards out in the field. That's where her son and grandson found her after the storm -- in the field. They were just sitting out there. Just to see the people and the devastation up close like that, you don't ever forget that. There just aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week for me to do all that I want to do to help people like that.
That's what brought you guys back together after so long. Can you believe it's been 27 years since your Monday Night Football game? It was kind of a defining moment for both of you -- good and bad.
Boz: It doesn't define either one of us. I think what it defined is people's mindset, their perceptions and their expectations of what people wanted to see. It's so hard to go into any profession, especially sports, with expectations that are larger than life. It makes it impossible. It's a qualifiable unknown that you are always chasing. And you can't ever put your arms around it. You try so hard, with all your heart and soul and passion, and the last thing I, or any professional athlete, ever wants to do is disappoint anybody. But when you don't live up to expectations -- whether it's the fans', the coaches' or especially our own -- it hurts. I know.
Jameis Winston. He grew up 20 minutes from where I grew up in Alabama. And it's ironic: He won the Heisman, he was the first player picked and he was selected by Tampa Bay. Those are exactly my footsteps. That's weird. And the running back from Wisconsin, Melvin Gordon.
Wait. Really? You don't watch football at all?
Bo: I've never been a fan to where I'm gonna sit and watch a football game. My wife makes me come down and watch Auburn games with her because our two youngest kids are here. But the only place where I can find some peace and quiet is on the sideline. So I have to watch the game. But I used to just drive my wife over and drop her off at the stadium and then go to the country club and play golf.
Bosworth admits he was Darth Vader to Jackson's Luke Skywalker in their playing days. Mary Lou Davis photo
What do you guys like and dislike about today's game?
Boz: I don't like that the defense can't be physical, and they have to adjust their physicality during the course of the play. Not prior to or after but actually during the play. They have to figure out a way to adjust their approach to the hit, which, to me, changes a key ingredient and a part of the philosophy of playing defense. Everything is spread out so far now. Kids today are not taught the fundamentals of the game: how to block and tackle. We were taught back in the day how to do the simple things first before we moved on to, "OK, let's spread this thing way out all over the place, throw it every down, run a track meet and try to score 65 points in every game."
Bo: I was taught [to] go out [and] play hard-nose, ugly football. Then you look good after you win. Guys are doing too much celebrating on a simple tackle.
Boz: Or a first down.
Bo: Celebrating like they won the game, like those linemen celebrating because they made a tackle who jumped around and tore their knee? All this excessive celebrating with today's players, that's one of the reasons I don't watch it. I also don't like all the new rules the NFL is putting in to play. I think it's good from the standpoint of PTSD with players, but if they continue to make the game softer and softer and softer, hell, they might as well play flag football.
Boz: Yeah. Or soccer.
Bo: One thing I wouldn't let my kids do for all the tea in China is this "Friday Night Tykes" thing. The show where they got these little kids playing football and hitting like they're in the NFL? These kids' brains aren't even half developed, and they're out tackling and getting concussions at 9 and 10 years old ... and the parents are sitting up in the stands cheering?
Jackson hit 22 home runs for the Royals in 1987, the same year he made his NFL debut. He wound up playing eight seasons in the major leagues. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
Boz: The parents are the ones pushing it.
Bo: These parents are living vicariously through their kids. When this kid is turning 15 or 16 years old, this kid is not gonna know his name, he's not gonna know how to get home from school. And they're letting these guys coach these kids who have never played football outside of high school? That's like NASA telling one of us, "Why don't you come and fly this space shuttle next week?"
How do you guys want people to remember you?
Bo: I can say we were both good for the game, but the game was great for us. It has opened so many doors for me, and I'm quite sure it has done the same for Brian. It has allowed us to see another side of life outside of sports.
Boz: Football is so great. Once it was over for me, I went through a dark period in the 1990s, when I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, all because I didn't get a chance to complete what I started. As I got older, I started to understand -- I was grateful for the journey I was on. I was grateful despite how it turned out. Whether the journey ended up the way I wanted it to or it didn't, I was grateful for football. We are grateful that we have had the opportunities and the blessings, and it's not just all about us but the people who led us to get there -- the coaches, the people, the teammates who supported us and pushed us along the way. I can see what Bo is saying, the way so many kids now are disconnected from the honor and the responsibilities that it is to be able to call yourself a football player.
Bo: It's not about you, once you get to this level. It's not about how many millions you make or how big your house is or the cars you got. It's about, at the end of the day, what are you going to do to help your fellow man? Period. What are you going to do to give back and make a difference in somebody else's life? That's how you end up being measured; that's what it's all about. That's what we're doing here with Bo Bikes Bama. It's like Maya Angelou said: How can you be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud?
one of the best I've read in a long while
