“It’s not gonna be easy…anything worth obtaining in life is not just gonna be handed to you.”
Fred Jackson played high school football for a powerhouse program in Arlington, Texas.
But under those Friday night lights, amid the roaring crowd, he found himself sitting on the bench.
“I was small,” Jackson told the Moonlight Graham Show. “I mean tiny.”
He wasn’t kidding.
Back then, Fred stood 5’6″ and weighed 145 pounds.
He was a 3rd-string running back as a senior and only moved up to 2nd-string because of an injury.
“I knew it was gonna be hard,” Jackson said. “Being in Texas, football is life down there.”
His graduating class included 14 Division 1 football players.
All of them were bigger and better than Fred, his high school coach admitted. “But none were more determined.”
But determination alone doesn’t attract college recruits. Jackson had zero offers.
And why would he? He didn’t start a single game in his four years of high school football.
Still, he was desperate to keep playing.
Undersized and overlooked, he searched for an opportunity to play at the college level.
That’s when Fred and his twin brother, Patrick, connected with their former middle school coach.
“He said, ‘I’ve got the perfect place for you guys to go and continue your football career.'”
That place was Coe College – a Division III school with 1,300 students.
“We had no one else knocking down our door,” said their mother, Latricia Jackson. “The boys wanted to try it. I said, ‘Go.’”
So the brothers enrolled and took the 850-mile drive up to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
D3 schools can’t offer athletic scholarships, so they didn’t know if they’d even get a chance to play.
But luckily, it turned out to be the perfect fit.
“I loved everything about being at Coe.”
In terms of size – not skill – Fred Jackson was a late bloomer.
Going into his sophomore year at Coe, he grew 4 inches and packed on 40 pounds.
“My dad was a late bloomer, and we followed right along in his tracks,” Fred said.
“It took him 18, 19 years before he started to grow, too. It was exactly what he said it would be. He said, ‘It’ll come. It’s just going to take you a little while.’”
Fred was already a track star at Coe – a two-time All-American on the 4×100-meter relay team – but the added bulk helped him dominate on the gridiron too.
In his senior year, he ran for 1,702 yards and 29 touchdowns. Yes, 29 touchdowns.
He won back-to-back conference MVP awards and led the Kohawks to their first Iowa Conference Championship.
By the time he graduated, Jackson stood 6’1″ and weighed 210 pounds.
That summer, he had tryouts with four NFL teams:
- Chicago Bears
- Dallas Cowboys
- Denver Broncos
- Green Bay Packers
“All of ’em said the same thing: ‘We think you’re talented, but it’s just hard to make the jump from Division 3 to the NFL.'”
Every scout said they needed more game tape before sticking their neck out for him.
Fred could have quit on his dream right there, but he didn’t.
“I was just motivated after hearing that.”
Jackson found his next opportunity with an indoor league team called the Sioux City Bandits. During those two years, he worked as a counselor at a child welfare and juvenile justice agency to supplement his $200 game checks.
He excelled on the field, scoring 53 touchdowns in 18 games and winning league MVP in 2005.
Still, NFL scouts weren’t exactly lighting up his phone.
That’s when the D3 connection helped him again.
Buffalo Bills GM Marv Levy, a fellow Coe College alum, invited him to training camp.
“Without him giving me that opportunity, I don’t know that I’d make it to the NFL.”
After a year in NFL Europe, Jackson made the Bills’ 53-man roster and did what scouts said he couldn’t.
In 2007, he made his first career start – rushing for 82 yards and catching four passes for 69 yards – and never looked back.
Two years into his NFL career, Fred got a message from one of the scouts who originally told him he wouldn’t make it.
“He was just like, ‘Man I told you you weren’t good enough to play in the NFL, now you’re single-handedly carrying my fantasy team.'”
Once he became a household name, the trips home to Texas felt a little bit different.
“I ran into some of the guys who were Division I athletes, and one of the things they said was, ‘Who would have thought it? We all got to go to the big school and look at us. We all got 9-to-5s, and you’re living the dream playing where we all wanted to play.’”
“You don’t want to rub it in people’s faces, but it’s definitely there. [I wanted to say], ‘Look at what I can do. I told you I have the talent to do it.’”
Fred Jackson ended his NFL career as one of the most productive running backs of his time.
- 5,746 rushing yards
- 2,897 receiving yards
- 39 total touchdowns
In 2018, he signed a one-day contract to retire with the Buffalo Bills.
“It’s a story that’s like nobody else’s,” Jackson told AP News. “And that’s something to be proud of.”
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