Grisamore: Roger Jackson wins his own Super Bowl

Roger Jackson never got to play in the Super Bowl.

He came close. Closer than most of us could ever aspire.

But he never got to taste the most prime pigskin in all of sports. He missed that fleeting chance to claim a piece of football’s most coveted prize.

Jackson spent five seasons with the Denver Broncos in the 1980s. The one season he was not on the roster, 1986, was the year quarterback John Elway led the Broncos to the Super Bowl against the New York Giants, a franchise that will take center stage today in Super Bowl XLVI.

He never made it to the Super Bowl in 13 seasons as an NFL scout, either, although he came tantalizingly close again. He was with Kansas City in 1993, when Joe Montana took the Chiefs as far as the AFC championship game before running out of gas. Gosh, that sure would have been nice since the Super Bowl was played in Atlanta that year.

Six years later, he had yet another opportunity to go to the Big Dance as a scout on the staff with Minnesota. But the Atlanta Falcons beat the Vikings on a dramatic field goal in overtime to claim their one and only Super Bowl appearance. That would have been special for Jackson, too, since it would have been a matchup with his old team, Denver.

“The window of opportunity is small, and it closes so quickly,” he said.

So there never was a Super Bowl ring to slip on his finger, a trophy to admire or the privilege of competing in the most widely-watched sporting event in America.

But that’s OK.

There are still victories every day.

Three years ago last week, Jackson launched the Motivating Youth Foundation, an after-school program in Macon’s Housing Authority’s Family Investment Center. It is located in East Macon across Main Street from the Davis Homes public housing, in the long shadows of the Ocmulgee National Monument.

Every weekday afternoon, about 135 children, ages 5-17, hurry through the doors where Jackson and more than a dozen teachers tutor them in their school work and mentor them through the ups and downs of life.

“I know they want to be here,” Jackson said. “I can look out the door and see them getting off the bus and running down here. Sometimes, the only trouble we have with them is getting them to go home. They don’t want to leave.”

On a far wall is a large framed photograph of Jackson, wearing his No. 28 in the defensive backfield for the Broncos. But that was long ago and far away. He doesn’t need to be reminded that the last year he suited up -- 1987 -- was the year Denver quarterback Tim Tebow was born.

Jackson is not responsible for the poster-size photograph on the wall. It was placed there by a co-worker. In fact, when the facility first opened, there were no displays of his pro football background anywhere. A few of the children knew. Most of them didn’t.

His goal never was to have his own photograph on the cinder-block wall, but rather rows of pictures of the children. He challenges them to earn their way on the wall of fame by making the honor roll at school.

It started with five smiling faces. Now there are 68. There has been as many as 87.

“It makes them proud when they get their picture up there,” he said. “They will sometimes stop and look at themselves. They bring their moms in here to show them.”

Jackson sees a bit of himself in each of them. He grew up in a single-parent home in Macon’s Tindall Heights housing project. His mother, Earline, was a housekeeper and a cook at Cag’s restaurant. His older brother, Chip, would drive Roger and his neighborhood friends to their elementary school football games in a 1954 Chevy his uncle gave him.

Jackson might not have made it to the Super Bowl, but he was an integral part of Central High School’s 1975 state championship team, the only state football title won by a Macon public school team since integration.

He earned a scholarship at Bethune-Cookman, and graduated the day before the NFL draft. When no professional team called his name, he went to camp as a free agent with Denver because of his admiration for Coach Dan Reeves, a Georgia native who grew up in nearby Americus.

During his NFL career, Jackson never forgot his roots. He used part of his pro football salary to help his mother open her own restaurant near what is now the Mercer Village. He became a financial partner in helping his brother fulfill his dream of owning his own auto repair shop. Chip’s Automotive is still doing business on Napier Avenue.

The seeds were planted for the Motivating Youth program after he helped with a summer football camp at Henderson Stadium and volunteered to assist with a school supply drive.

When the Bibb County school system slashed funding for after-school programs at more than a dozen schools in 2009, he stepped to the plate and used some of his own money to help get Motivating Youth started in his hometown.

Other funding became available through the Macon Housing Authority, the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, the Elam Alexander Foundation and National Football League Youth Foundation. He began to raise money through grants and private donations.

He modeled it after similar character-building and academic programs he had been involved with in NFL cities where he had worked. “I took the best from all of them,” he said.

The center opened on Feb. 2, 2009, three weeks before his 50th birthday. In the beginning, some folks thought he might simply be lending his name to help promote the program. He worked hard to convince everyone he was not going to be an absentee. He was not going to do business from the outside. He was committed to getting in the middle of it, getting his hands dirty and become part of the solution. And he has demonstrated that he does care. He visits their schools and meets with their parents.

In the summer, the rolls often swell to as many as 200 children. On the weekends, he allows some of the older boys to gather to watch football games on TV and work out in the weight room.

It keeps them off the streets and out of trouble.

“Our motto is to be better today than you were yesterday,” he said. “We tell them getting an education is the springboard to everything in life. It opens so many doors. Instead of telling them to do one more push-up or run one more sprint, I tell them to read one more paragraph. Or solve one more problem.”

You don’t have to play in a Super Bowl to win one.

Reach Gris at 744-4275 or gris@macon.com.

This story was originally published February 5, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Grisamore: Roger Jackson wins his own Super Bowl."