Early Years
Jackson was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1978, one of eight brothers and sisters in his family. He attended Tampa Catholic High School in Tampa, Florida, where he was a standout wide receiver for the Tampa Catholic Crusaders high school football team. As a senior, Jackson set then-national high school records for career receiving yardage (4,594) and average yards per catch (24.05), and caught a total of 191 passes in three seasons for the Crusaders. He had eighty-nine receptions for 2,087 yards and twenty-eight touchdowns as a junior, and sixty-seven receptions as a senior.
Basketball, not football, however, was Jackson's first love. As the sophomore point guard of a basketball team that included only eight players, he led the Crusaders to the 3A crown and was named state tournament most valuable player. As a senior, he led his team to the state tournament one more time in 1997, where it lost in the championship game.
The Tampa Tribune recognized Jackson as one of the 100 greatest Tampa Bay area athletes of the last century in 1999. In 2007, eleven years after he graduated from Tampa Catholic, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) recognized Jackson as one of the thirty-three all-time greatest Florida high school football players of the last 100 years by naming him to its "All-Century Team."
Read more about this topic: Darrell Jackson
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