Former Franklin High star Lamar Jackson is ready to get his feet wet in the NFL
Lamar Jackson is a football player. Built like a truck with convertible speed, he is physical, ferocious and fun in gear.
And he likes to have his naked feet tended to.
Jackson is the 6-foot-2, 210-pound All-Big Ten cornerback for Nebraska by way of Franklin High School. He is expected to be drafted this weekend into the NFL, where he will start a new wave of dreams come true. He aims to build his own name and brand and to not be confused with 2019 NFL MVP Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens.
Back to those feet. Those dogs get tired. They wear out from hours of conditioning and running, of burdening a load of expectations.
Jackson’s mother, Catherine, is a cosmetologist. She does hair, nails and feet.
Business has stalled to a crawl with the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering places near and far, but Catherine has a grinning and chatty customer in her son.
”She’s giving me a pedicure now,” Jackson said Wednesday morning by phone with a laugh. He was at his mother’s Elk Grove home waiting to hear his name called to join the pros. The draft runs Thursday through Saturday, and his feet will be raring to go along with the rest of him.
“She never does my finger nails,” Jackson continued. “Just feet, a pedicure. I look at it as recovery for my feet. Get the rub job going, the soak. I need that. And it’s my mom!”
Mother and son have a special bond. Catherine applied the tough-love element to her boy as a single mother. She had him suit up for football as a young boy to keep active, to learn social skills, to face adversity.
But there was resistance.
”I started playing at 6 and I tried to quit,” Jackson explained. “But mom and my coaches wouldn’t let me quit. I was in tears. I’m a 6-year-old, wearing all this football gear, a huge helmet, it’s hot out and we’re doing these bear crawls to get in shape. I didn’t like it, but mom wouldn’t let me quit.”
Football excellence begins in the classroom
Jackson grew to love the sport. He liked running away from others in shoulder pads. He relished the opportunity to tackle.
Flash forward to his freshman year at Franklin. He was an athlete, big and strong. Scholarship material and he was social, a growing man on campus. But his lack of focus in class concerned Mike Johnson, a Franklin physical education instructor and the varsity football coach at that time.
Johnson in 2013 summoned a 14-year-old Jackson into his campus office for a chat. Told him to get his mother on the phone.
The discussion was how to get Jackson to become a better student, to get him on track so he could pursue his dream of playing college football on scholarship. The message sunk. Jackson applied himself as a student and continued to flourish as a dominating athlete at Franklin, where played quarterback, defensive back – anything needed.
Jackson became a national recruit. He signed a national letter of intent with Nebraska in 2016, calling it the biggest day of his life. He still credits his mother and Johnson for being on the cusp of the NFL.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Jackson said of his chat with Johnson. “I can look back and truly be proud. It was a real conversation. I wasn’t going to be able to play in college, get a scholarship, unless I got better as a student. So through the second half of high school, I kept digging out of that academic hole.
“Thank God for my teachers, my coaches like Johnson who took interest in me and cared. They kept on me, made me do due diligence. I matured. I grew.”
He paused then added, “There’s a message in that. You can’t just be an athlete. You have to be a student first. Don’t be ignorant at the opportunity at hand.”
When told of what Jackson had to say on this matter, Johnson paused for reflection.
”Wow. Good for you, Lamar!” Johnson said. “That is just awesome. This brings a smile to my face. I’ve talked to a lot of NFL scouts lately leading into the draft and I tell them that story. I’d say, ‘how much time do you have? I’ve got stories to tell about Lamar!’”
Among the things Johnson shares with NFL personnel looking for insight and background is how Jackson can be defined by loyalty.
“One of the things that makes me most proud of Lamar is something we don’t always see in college sports – he remained loyal to the school he committed to,” Johnson said. “He had three defensive back coaches in four years at Nebraska. All the coaches who recruited him to Nebraska were gone within a year or two. But Lamar never left.
“I also told NFL scouts that Lamar never missed a practice. Lamar never back-talked coaches. Never rolled his eyes. I never babied him. That’s not my style. I’m harder on the star players and he responded.”
‘Look where he is now’
Josiah Deguara can vouch for Jackson’s continued character and drive. A tight end from Cincinnati out of Folsom High with his own NFL dreams, Deguara and Jackson worked out to prepare for the NFL combine.
”What a good guy and a great athlete,” Deguara said of Jackson. “He cares. This means a lot to him.”
Johnson found this to be true in 2013, when young Jackson was finding himself.
”I first saw Lamar when he walked past my PE office, this big kid, and I said, ‘Whoa! Come here. You’re not on our freshman football team. Why is that?’” Johnson said. “It was grades, and then he worked on it, and look where he is now.”
Jackson graduated from Franklin with a 3.5 GPA. He played quarterback and in the secondary in high school, earned Bee All-Metro honors and landed on The Bee’s All-Decade Team.
Jackson was a three-year starter at Nebraska. He made 40 tackles as a senior in 2019 with three interceptions and 12 pass breakups. He was voted by teammates as the Huskers’ defensive MVP.
Jackson squeezed in the Senior Bowl and the NFL combine before the coronavirus pandemic closed down much of the country. Now he’s about to be a professional.
”It’s crazy to think how fast this has all happened,” Jackson said. “I have a whole bunch of nerves. I’m excited, I’m nervous. It’s the unknown now. But I know that by the end of this weekend, I’ll be in the NFL and that’s a blessing. I’m so proud.”
He isn’t the only one.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 4:00 AM.