Happy Birthday, Bo Jackson!

jacksonboA true testament to the title – “professional athlete” – there was only one Bo Jackson.

Multi-Sport athletes come and they go, many of them only really have an impact on one of their careers, the one they choose to focus on. We saw it in the world of Sports today, with Kyler Murray. A top prospect in the National Football League, and a top 10 draft pick in Major League Baseball. Murray went on to choose the path of the sport he adored more, Football.

Deion Sanders also did it. Had an illustrious football career in the NFL as one of the best defensive backs and kick returners to grace the Earth, but then also took his talents to Baseball for a little while.

Bo Jackson was different in his own way, Bo Jackson was GIFTED in his own way.

Jackson never took anything too seriously. After winning the Heisman Trophy in 1998 as College Football’s best player, he went on to describe the sport that he dominated as nothing but a “hobby.” He wasn’t a huge person, standing 6’1 and weighing about 225 lbs, but his gift didn’t need him to be, he was the best and most coordinated athlete that has ever played a sport, he could truly do anything with his body.

Jackson was the first athlete named to play in the All-Star Game of two major sports, he actually hit a home run in 1989 MLB All-Star Game.

“When people tell me I could be the best athlete there is, I just let it go in one ear and out the other,” Jackson said when his stardom was near its peak in 1990. “There is always somebody out there who is better than you are.”

Whether that was modesty or not, it wasn’t very accurate when talking about the athlete Bo Jackson.

In baseball, he was a career .250 hitter with 141 home runs in eight major-league seasons as an outfielder with the Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and California Angels. He hit 107 homers for the Royals from 1987 through 1990, when he also played pro football.

As a part-time running back making full-time money with the Los Angeles Raiders, he ran for 2,782 yards and scored 18 touchdowns. He is the only player in NFL history to have two rushing touchdowns of 90 yards or more, with a 91-yarder coming when he rambled for a Raiders record 221 yards against Seattle a month into his pro football career.

His last play as a Raider began the end of both his football and baseball careers. Even though the 1991 injury would lead to hip-replacement surgery in the spring of 1992, Jackson would make a triumphant return to baseball before retiring for good.

Happy Birthday to one of, if not the greatest athlete to ever walk on this planet, Bo Jackson.

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