Sep 7, 2019

  • Jamison HensleyESPN Staff Writer

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    • University of Maryland graduate
    • Lives in the Baltimore area with his wife and son

Long before Lamar Jackson reached the NFL, Sunday was a work day.

For countless weekends, Jackson would go through quarterback drills on a field near his South Florida home. From youth football through high school, he would be there with trainer Van Warren, focusing on everything from his footwork to holding the ball correctly.

On one particular Sunday morning, a teenage Jackson got a chance to go to a Miami Dolphins game and asked his mother, Felicia Jones, if he could go. The answer was no. He had committed to training on Sundays, and it was too late to break that obligation.

Jackson was livid when he arrived at the practice field. Warren knew he had to say something to his frustrated football prodigy.

"Listen, I don't know how, I don't when and I don't know where, but at some point in time, all of this that you're doing is going to pay off," Warren told Jackson.

Now, five years later, Jackson finally gets his chance to go to a Dolphins game -- as the starting quarterback for the opposition. On Sunday, Jackson will lead the Baltimore Ravens into Miami's Hard Rock Stadium, playing his first game in South Florida that matters since high school.

During that time away, Jackson has set a new standard everywhere he has played. At Louisville, he became the youngest player to win the Heisman Trophy. Last season, as a rookie with the Baltimore Ravens, Jackson, who started only seven games, had 1,896 total yards and 11 scores while becoming the youngest quarterback to start an NFL playoff game (21 years, 364 days).

Sunday's season opener won't mark any historical milestone for Jackson -- just a personal one.

"It's going to be a whirlwind, with all type of family members and friends being there," Jackson said. "It's going to be like a homecoming for me."

All of Jackson's gone-in-a-flash dashes can be traced back to his hometown of Pompano Beach, Florida, a 25-minute drive from where the Dolphins play. Nearly every day growing up, no matter how hot it was, Jackson and his mother would run.

Their normal route took them over a bridge, to a Walmart and back. Jackson and his mother would go back and forth and then do it again. The total round trip was about 4 miles.

"My mom was keeping me in condition," Jackson said. "She told me, 'You're going to be fast.' I really didn't want to do it. I wanted to play football outside."

Mom was there for that, too, but it wasn't fun and games. After the runs, Jackson and his younger brother would put on equipment and run drills with their mother. It wasn't unusual to see Jackson lining up in a three-point stance and blocking his mother, or Jackson running and getting tackled by her.

"I didn't think it was cool," Jackson said with a laugh. "'You're my mother. You're not my coach.' But it paid off."

Jackson began playing youth football at 8 years old. The head coach asked Warren, the local quarterback tutor, if Jackson could play the position.

Warren's challenge to Jackson: Throw the football 20 yards. If he could, Warren would teach him how to play quarterback. If Jackson couldn't, he'd have to play another position.

"He threw me a dime," Warren said.

During the time Jackson was playing youth football, Michael Vick was darting around NFL defenders, making Pro Bowls and becoming the only quarterback in league history to rush for over 1,000 yards. Jackson believed he could be like his childhood idol by his second year with the Pompano Cowboys.

It helped that Jackson was already faster and more elusive than everyone else. He would routinely cut back all the way across the field, make a couple of jukes, and leave behind a field of players on the ground who had dived at his feet.

Jackson was scoring four, five, six touchdowns a game, but not everyone was cheering.

"I probably scored all of the touchdowns, and the parents would get mad because their kid isn't getting the ball," Jackson said. "But when their kid got the ball, nothing would happen. He would get 2 or 3 yards. When we needed to score, they would tell me to run quarterback boot."

Rick Swain, the head football coach at Boynton Beach Community High, first met Jackson before his junior year. Jackson had transferred from a rival school, and was introduced to Swain as a great quarterback.

"He ain't scored a point for me yet," Swain said. "So, he is not a quarterback until I see him."

Jackson replied, "Well, Coach, I'm going to have to show you this spring."

On the first day of spring practice, Jackson ran an option drill where he stuck his foot in the ground and turned it upfield for 60 yards. Swain turned to his offensive coordinator and said, "We're not running what we've been running."

The coaching staff wanted to find an offense that suited Jackson's unique talents and found film of the pistol offense being run by a high school in Western Michigan.

In two years, Jackson won 22 of 24 games and produced over 5,000 yards of offense, passing for 3,033 yards and running for 2,440. He accounted for 80 touchdowns (45 TD passes and 35 runs).

Jackson's most memorable game was Boynton Beach's shootout against Coconut Creek, which had surprisingly taken the lead late in fourth quarter. Jackson put an arm on the shoulder of an infuriated Swain and told him, "Coach, we got this. No worries."

Moments later, Jackson scored on a diving 6-yard touchdown run with six seconds to play for a 63-58 victory. He finished with 346 yards passing and two touchdowns in addition to 146 yards rushing and five touchdowns.

For Swain, the best part about coaching Jackson was watching the film afterward.

"I used to call him 'Mr. Video Game,'" Swain said. "He stood apart from everybody else. It looked like you were playing Madden or something. You had the supercharged guy."

The South Florida regions of Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties routinely produce the largest numbers of ESPN 300 football recruits and other high-level talent. Yet, Jackson, a long, lean, three-star quarterback, was the talk of the area.

There was the controversy during Jackson's junior season when he hurdled a defender for a touchdown but the referees called it back. Apparently, that's against the rules in high school, which few knew about. The official later told Swain, "Man, I hated to throw the flag. It was an awesome run."

There was the highlight that made the local TV newscast when Jackson scrambled down the right sideline and stopped instantly at the 3-yard line, letting the diving defender fly past him and out of bounds. Jackson then walked into the end zone untouched.

There was the video that went viral in 2015 that showed Jackson testing his arm after a flag football game. He stood at one goal line and launched the ball 100 yards through the night sky to someone standing at the other end of the field.

"I coached for over 40 years, and he's the best," Swain said. "I never had one anywhere close to him."

After leaving Florida, Jackson never forgot his roots, no matter what level of success he achieved.

When he won the Heisman, one of his first calls was to his youth coaches, who had gathered to watch the ceremony. After a season in which he led the Ravens to the AFC North title, he held a fun day for kids in Pompano Beach that included a bounce house, water slides and a game of catch with Jackson. It was at this event that the mayor announced the first Saturday in July would be known as "Lamar Jackson Day" in Pompano Beach.

At Louisville, he played at Florida State twice, but Tallahassee might as well be in another state considering it's 450 miles from Jackson's hometown. With the Ravens, he got to score a touchdown in Miami last season, but it was a preseason game in which he didn't see the field until the second half.

All offseason, as Baltimore's unquestioned starter, Jackson is still working on his skills as a quarterback, and he has a team that could be the AFC North favorites. But, at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, Jackson will experience a moment that he's been building toward a lot longer than that.

"This kid has a chance to meet some of the all-time greats and can travel certain places. But to be able to play back in your hometown as a starting NFL quarterback, I don't think there's a feeling like that," Warren said. "It's got to be something that you cherish for a lifetime."