Beware. Don’t dare set foot in Bo Jackson’s crib without knocking.
A loud knock, too, that announces your presence. It doesn’t matter if your entrance is a my-bad that happens after you rap the door, albeit tap it light, and twist the handle to see if maybe it’s unlocked—and it is. Because this is Bo Jackson’s foyer, and though Bo is 61 he’s still considered by many the greatest athlete who ever lived, the same dude who knocked baseballs into the mesosphere, who after strikeouts snapped bats as if they were twigs, who performed improbable-to-impossible gridiron feats on the regular, like running right the fuck over a steroid-buffed Brian Bosworth for a touchdown on Monday Night Football. Those sublime moments in sports lore add contextual heft to Bo’s first words to me, an admonishment and a loving Black greeting in one:
“Hey, man. Don’t be walking up in my house without knocking. You gon’ mess around and get shot!”
Bo, who’s been struggling with a mysterious and mundane medical condition, shouts this while padding from his dining room into his sprawling living room dressed in checkered pajama bottoms and a V-neck T-shirt. His face is as clean-shaven as his head, and teal-colored eye strips are affixed under his eyes. He’s put on a few, but the sports-demigod physique is visible under the weight. The mounds for shoulders. The footballs for biceps. The legs the size of a whole set of golf clubs.
There are stars, superstars, legends, and those who were enough of all three to become myths. Despite Bo’s short-lived career, you’d be hard-pressed to find an athlete more mythologized.
Did you hear? Bo once leaped over a Volkswagen. Bo collapsed a batting cage with one hit when a Yankees scout came to Auburn to watch him. Bo marveled 40 meters in 4.12 seconds. Bo broke his
