Dad among Plano West star Jeffcoat's many suitors
09:05 PM CDT on Saturday, September 5, 2009
There is only so much the father can say about his son's football skills as he cautiously maneuvers through an NCAA minefield of bylaw subparagraphs and potential recruiting violations.
"You know, as a recruiter I can't really talk about him," Jim Jeffcoat was saying over the telephone from his assistant coach's office at the University of Houston. "But as a father, I can tell you that I would guess he is exactly what this school is looking for."
A hearty laugh punctuated the words of the man known in college football recruiting circles these days as Jackson Jeffcoat's father. He knows NCAA rules are very specific about what college recruiters can say about high school players. They've been legislated into silence about anything more than the fact they know the kid exists and their school has an interest.
And here is the piece de resistance in the Jim-Jackson, father-son, recruiter-recruit tale: Jackson Jeffcoat just may be the best high school player in the country. ESPN ranks Jackson the nation's No. 1 recruit. To be fair, Rivals.com, another respected ranker of recruits, is not quite as impressed. It rates Jackson, a senior defensive end at Plano West, only at No. 5.
But even the powerful enforcer of college football rules knows it can't legislate the speech of a man who has changed his son's diapers, watched him take his first steps, helped with homework, fussed to make that tie look just right on prom night and taught him a thing or two about technique when exploding toward a quarterback.
And Jim Jeffcoat, who earned two Super Bowl rings with the Cowboys and played 15 stellar seasons as a defensive end in the NFL, delights in talking about his son.
After all, Jackson is a 6-5, 235-pound blue chip off the old block. He is a student of the game, a good student in the classroom, a quiet leader on the field, always painfully polite off it.
"I am so proud of him," said Jim Jeffcoat, whose office is 270 miles south of his family home in North Dallas but who gets back as often as he can, particularly on Friday nights. "It's not because of his accomplishments on the field, but how he treats people and how they react to him. It's most important that he is kind and considerate. His mother has taught him well. There is a whole lot more to life beyond football."
Yes, but recruiting season is wide open on Jackson Jeffcoat. He has yet to take his first official recruiting trip but plans a bunch. He has narrowed his choices to Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Florida, Arizona State and Houston.
The first four schools are bona fide national powers familiar with successfully wooing high school superstars. Arizona State is in the discussion largely because that is where Jim prepped before joining the Cowboys as their first-round draft choice in 1983.
And Houston, the only non-BCS school in the bunch, remains in the hunt because that is where Jim is in his second year as the defensive line coach. What a coup it would be for an up-and-coming program to sign the top recruit in the country.
Sitting in the family living room last week, Jackson Jeffcoat could see the question coming as clearly as he might see a quarterback rolling out of the pocket. He politely waded through the preliminaries, filling his sentences with "yes sirs" and "no sirs" while trying not to be distracted by a cellphone that spewed text messages by the second.
In a 20-minute span in the kitchen across the house, his mother, Tammy, was fielding calls from Notre Dame, Arizona State and Oklahoma. Pete Carroll, the USC coach whose name Tammy later would momentarily have trouble recalling, had called the day before. But now Bob Stoops, the Oklahoma coach, was on the phone hoping to talk to Jackson. Can't, Tammy told Stoops, her son was busy in the living room.
Oh yes, the question: Why not simply play for your father at Houston?
"Me and my dad have talked a lot about it," Jackson said. "All he wants is the best for me. He wants me to be happy, to do what is right for me. It's a decision no one else has to live with. It's all on me. My father and mother have spent 18 years preparing me to make decisions like this."
Back when Jim and Tammy Jeffcoat were still making football decisions concerning their second-born son, it was decided that he wouldn't play the game until seventh grade.
"We thought there was too much emphasis on youth football," Tammy Jeffcoat said. "And Jackson was always good size. We figured they would have to make him a lineman from the start, and what fun is it for a little boy?
"And Jim didn't think it would be good to have all those collisions of bones so early," she added. "He also didn't want Jackson to learn bad techniques from coaches who thought they knew about coaching linemen. Jim wanted to wait until he was old enough to learn proper technique."
And so Jackson Jeffcoat had to make do with playing basketball, soccer and baseball while taking tae kwon do lessons on the side – activities his father hoped would help with hand-eye coordination. Problem was, Jackson's twin sister, Jacqueline, was cheerleading at youth football games. Jackson's friends could play, his sister could cheer but he could only watch. It was unbearable for a boy who always had been so active, he had to be tied down in his high chair.
Finally, in sixth grade, the parents relented, but only after consulting with son Jaren, three years older. Jaren hadn't been allowed to play until seventh grade, and the parents wanted to keep the playing field even.
Jackson was dominant from the first snap. That was also the grade in which Jackson, at almost 6 feet tall, threw down his first slam dunk on the basketball court.
By the time he reached eighth grade, Jackson was so dominant that Plano West coach Mike Hughes told him he had the talent to play on the school's varsity. The next year, Hughes had the ninth-grader on his Class 5A team.
Meanwhile, Jim Jeffcoat, who had coached Cowboys defensive linemen from 1998 through 2004, was becoming more and more restless in his new job, running an insurance agency in Plano. He missed football.
"Coaching had become my passion," he said. "It was in my blood."
Tammy was not happy when Jim began flirting with the idea of returning to coaching, where the hours were long and laced with travel. Besides, who knew where he might find a job?
The agency gave the rest of the Jeffcoat family insurance that the father would always be there. Jackson was playing football and basketball. Jacqueline, three minutes younger and three inches shorter, had given up cheering and blossomed into one of the finest high school basketball players in the state. And Jasmine, the baby, was learning to play.
"I thought life was good, really, really good," Tammy said. "And then Jim started flirting with coaching again. I thought he was being really, really selfish. But then I realized that he was chasing his passion. We all did. We decided making sacrifices for Jim was only right."
Jim Jeffcoat took the job with Houston in January 2008, a month after Kevin Sumlin left Oklahoma to become the Houston head coach.
Among the perks Sumlin handed Jeffcoat was recruiting the Dallas area. That meant father could spend as much time as possible back home.
Sumlin also told Jeffcoat that he would take primary responsibility for recruiting Jackson. The head coach called Tammy Jeffcoat and asked if it would be OK to pursue her son.
"Do your thing," Tammy Jeffcoat told him.
Sumlin understands Jackson's predicament. The coach's father was a high school principal who thought it best that his son attend another school.
"We have to think when does the father-son relationship replace the player-coach relationship?" Tammy said. "We have to think of awkward moments in the locker room. Jackson would love to be coached by his father, but we have long-term relationships to think about."
Truth be told, when it comes to a prospect of Jackson's caliber, head coaches take a special interest in the recruiting process. When the phone rings in the Jeffcoat house now, it is just as likely that the voice on the other end could belong to USC's Carroll, Oklahoma's Stoops, Texas' Mack Brown, Florida's Urban Meyer, Arizona State's Dennis Erickson or Houston's Sumlin.
Of course, sometimes it's USC assistant Ken Norton Jr., Jim's former Cowboys teammate and a longtime close friend of the family. Or it might be Oklahoma's Jackie Shipp, a longtime acquaintance.
Tammy says it was Norton who provided the first convincing outside voice that her son was special.
"I know a lot of professional athletes whose kids are very athletic, but they're soft," Tammy recalled Norton telling her.
"He said Jackson was one of the exceptions," Tammy said. "He told me Jackson knows how to go to the dark side when he is playing, and that is a very good thing."
A USC spokesman who checked with the school's NCAA compliance office said Norton could have no comment on Jackson, whom he has known practically from birth.
"We have to err on the side of caution," the spokesman said. "Rules are rules."
Jim Jeffcoat says he already has seen plenty of rule violations in the recruiting of Jackson.
"You'd be shocked," he said.
There has been nothing major, but there was a handwritten letter that was received when Jackson was a sophomore, which Jim said is out of bounds. And coaches have called Jackson when the rules say they can't.
Tammy said rule-breaking schools have been automatically eliminated from consideration because they raised "integrity" issues.
And there is one more complication in the recruiting process. Twin sister Jacqueline last month committed to play basketball at Oklahoma. Internet chat rooms across the country have surmised that brother and sister automatically want to go to school together.
Not so, the Jeffcoats insist.
"Jackson has always been very protective of his sister, and he may be tired of watching out for her," Tammy said.
Twice, Tammy recalled, Jackson has punched boys who weren't nice to his sister. "She doesn't have a boyfriend now," the mother said. "Maybe that's because boys are intimidated when Jackson's around."
When Jim and Jackson are together, no one knows when a friendly shove might escalate into the two men dropping into football stances and pretending to square off against each other. It happens at home, in parking lots, in malls.
It's part of the "love language" between father and son.
So too, Jackson said, is the ongoing joke in which father tells son there would be a raise in the allowance and a new car if the son makes the right decision on where to go.
"But really," said Jackson Jeffcoat, who still refers to his father as "Daddy" in family discussions, "all he wants is the best for me. Everyone in the family will understand and support me in whatever decision I make."