ARLINGTON, Texas — The greatest athlete in the modern era now lives on YouTube, Instagram, our memories and a video game that Bo Jackson swears he has never played, but remains in boxes in his house.
Bo Jackson insists he has never played “Tecmo Bowl,” the popular late 1980s and early 1990s video game version of the NFL before “Madden” revolutionized the genre. The video game version of Bo is some code combination of Greek hero on steroids that designers would no longer create.
“I hear that a lot, but — you probably won’t believe this — but I’ve never played that game,” Jackson said Friday morning at AT&T Stadium.
Jackson was in Arlington to be inducted into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame for his monster day in Auburn’s loss against Texas A&M, in 1985. Bo is 62, and today doesn’t watch football or baseball, the two sports he played professionally. He watches Formula 1, and he plays golf.
“If you had to compare me to my football skills to my golf skills, people say in football I’m an All-Star,” Bo said. “In golf, I’m the water boy.”
Good to know we can all be like Bo.
It’s bittersweet to see Bo today. Not because he’s older. Or that he can unintentionally sound a little bitter about the state of the games today, but rather we will never see this type of guy again.
This age of professional, or even high major, sports would never permit a Bo Jackson to even consider doing today what he did in the 1980s. Teams would not allow, seek or encourage an ungodly talented high school baseball player who played football to pursue the professional path to both.
They would be told, “Sorry son, you got to pick one.” Bo concurs. Not for the reason you’d think.
“The talent pool is too deep,” he said. “If somebody attempted it, more than likely they would be riding the bench in both.”
Hard to imagine any world where Bo knows the bench, but that’s what he’s saying.
The expected answer was it’s because of increased specialization in youth sports that has forced a teenager to go with one, rather than both. And or a high major college team would not want to invest in a player who could potentially suffer an injury in the “offseason” while playing another sport.
“I think a parent should allow a kid to play as many sports as he or she wants, and let that kid make up their mind in junior high or high school what sport they want to pursue,” he said.
“If I was coming out of high school in 2025 … I don’t even want to think about it. No. 1, I’d probably be corrupt. NIL, big head, thinking I’m all of this and everything. I’m glad I came out when I did.”
What Bo did “back then” is inconceivable today.
Bo finished his college career at Auburn in 1985, and he played Major League Baseball from 1986-1994. He played for the Los Angeles Raiders in 1987-1990. He suffered what would essentially be a career-ending hip injury after what looked like a routine hit during the Raiders’ playoff win over the Cincinnati Bengals in 1990.
He came back from the injury to play three more years in baseball, all with the Chicago White Sox, in 1991 and 1993-94.
While Bo was Bo, Deion Sanders played Major League Baseball from 1989-2001, although not every season. His career in the NFL lasted from 1989-2005, but he did not play at all from 2001-03.
Brian Jordan played MLB from 1992-2006, and in the NFL from 1989-91.
Michael Jordan famously retired from pro basketball to pursue pro baseball, but they never overlapped.
You will notice all of these careers ended more than 20 years ago.
The last major athletes to be considered to “play both” were Oklahoma quarterback/outfielder Kyler Murray, and Texas Tech quarterback/pitcher Patrick Mahomes.
A reason why so many college football programs did not pursue Mahomes was they thought he would do what his father did and pursue a career in baseball. Mahomes opted to play football at Texas Tech, but his baseball career was over.
Murray was a standout player for the Sooners baseball team, and he was the ninth overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft by the Oakland A’s. His passion was football, and once he was the No. 1 pick of the Arizona Cardinals, his baseball career was over.
Had they played in the 1980s, maybe they would have been allowed to pursue a career in both.
For the generation who watched Bo, or Deion, we all recognized what we were watching. We just did not know we were watching endangered species.
Maybe the Dinosaur will return, and there will be another Bo in the future. The one person who isn’t worrying about it is Bo himself. He’s satisfied with a legacy where the name “Bo” covers it all.
“I’ve had people ask, ‘Aren’t you the guy that did both sports?’ ” he said. “I said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Go do your homework.’ “
And when you complete your homework, just know it’s true.
