Bobby Jackson has loved the game of basketball since an early age.
But there was extra motivation behind his dreams of pursuing an NBA career, and that stemmed from his “rough” upbringing in Salisbury, North Carolina.
“I grew up in a single-family household. My mom had like a sixth-grade education, where she just cleaned hotel rooms and stuff of that nature,” Jackson recalled to Morgan Ragan and Deuce Mason on “Conversations with Deuce & Mo.” “We grew up in the projects. So it was a tough upbringing and growing up, but it kind of matured me into the person I am today. I had to go through a lot of ups and downs, having dreams of becoming an NBA basketball player at the ripe age of like 8 or 9.”
Jackson further shared that his twin sister, Barbara, had her first child at the age of 14, making him an uncle at the same age, which he said made him grow up fast.
Jackson explained that his love for basketball combined with wanting to escape the reality of how he grew up led to his grind of pursuing the sport professionally.
“It was both,” he said. “I wanted to escape poverty and the projects and gun violence and drugs and all other type of stuff that was going on. It kind of motivated me to go out and do it. [There] wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t touch a basketball and I didn’t hoop.”
Jackson admitted that he also was affected by not having his father in his life to help discipline him as a young boy. Given that his mom worked two jobs to provide for her children, Jackson and his sister really only had each other.
Like most young teenagers, he got into trouble here and there. But somehow, some way, he overcame it all through the game of basketball.
“I look back now and I be like, ‘Yo, I literally should not be here,’ you know?” Jackson said. “And I thank God every day that I had a little bit of security and a lot of blessings on my side because a lot of my friends are either in jail or they’re dead. And I’m not proud to say that, but it’s just the reality of where I come from.
“And that’s why I work my butt off to give my kids that lifestyle and that opportunity not to see what I went through as a young kid.”
Jackson ended up playing three seasons at community college before transferring to the University of Minnesota.
He was drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics with the No. 23 overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, and he played 12 years in the league, including, of course, six seasons in Sacramento with the Kings.
Jackson is just another great example of overcoming adversity, even with the odds against you. And now, as an assistant coach for the Kings, he is using his platform to be that father figure he never had to influence the next generation of players.