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Sports
KBS
Stopping Hodson
key to LSU game
By Hal L. Hammons
Sports Editor
Texas A&M Head Coach Jackie
Sherrill said Tuesday that stopping
Louisiana State quarterback Tom
Hodson was a priority for Saturday’s
game against the Tigers.
“There’s a lot of talk about Heis-
man Trophy players,” Sherrill said
at Cain Hall in his weekly press con
ference. “Hudson’s probably the best
in the country.
“If you look at the number of
games he has played, the competi
tion he has played against, and what
he has done with the football, he has
really outperformed all the others
hands down.”
He compared Hodson favorably
with Miami Dolphin quarterback
Dan Marino, whom Sherrill coached
at the University of Pittsburgh.
“He’s as good as Danny at this sta
ge,’’ he said. “You can talk about
Troy Aikman (the Heisman-candi-
date quarterback at UCLA), but
Hodson’s in a class of his own at this
stage.”
He said a big key will be how well
the Aggie defense will be able to put
pressure on Hodson in the pocket.
“We’ve gotten to Hodson,” he
said. “He remembers us from last
year.”
The play most memorable was un-,
doubtedly John Roper’s hit on Hod
son which crushed Roper’s face
mask and left Hodson shaken up on
the ground temnorarilv.
Sherrill said the offense will have
to improve over last week’s game,
but he again emphasized that the
blame for the ineffective offense
should not all be placed on quar
terback Bucky Richardson.
“There’s a lot of talk about Bucky
not playing well,” he said. “He threw
the ball well early, and then the re
ceivers were not in the right places in
the second hall. The quarterback
gets the blame for that.”
He said the biggest problem to f ix
is A&rM’s inability to convert on third
down situations.
He said, “We should convert on
third downs 42 percent of the time.
If we do that, we’re going to win.”
By contrast, he said the biggest
factor in Nebraska’s win was their
ability to come up with big plays on
third down.
The injury status remains the
same. Defensive end Leon Cole
(bruised foot), linebackers Dana Ba
tiste and Basil Jackson (bruised
shoulders) and cornerback Steve
Lofton (hyperextended knee) are
questionable.
Split end Rod Harris (dislocated
shoulder), fullback Matt Gurley
(sprained knee) and strong safety
Gary Jones (fractured hand) are out.
Running back Darren Lewis could
be forced into action with his
sprained toe hut will probably miss
the game.
All are expected to play Sept. 17
against Alabama.
Linebacker defies stereotypes
Jackson mixes school, sports with A+ results
By Hal L, Hammons
Sports Editor
Prof ile of the Week:
Basil Jackson
Editor’s note: "Profile of the Week'' is a
weekly feature in T he Battalion highlighting a
local sports personality. It will run on
Wednesdays.
Idealism is nice, but let’s face it — stereo
types exist.
And when the average person thinks of
what an electrical engineering major with a
3.1 GPR would look like, the picture gets filled
out pretty quickly.
Male, certainly. About 5-9, 135 pounds. In
trovert. Horn-rimmed glasses. Greasy hair.
High-waters. Calculator on the belt. Pocket
protector.
Well, Basil Jackson is male, but that’s about
as far as the similarity goes.
Basil is friendly and easy to talk to, for start
ers. He’s also 6-1,219 pounds.
“1 can’t say for sure,” he said. ‘I’m just
doing what I need to do to be where I want to
be — being both athletically and academically
sound.”
His GPR backs up the fact that he’s doing a
good job on the scholastic front. And his sta
tistics give the impression that he’s well on his
way in his athletic goal as well.
He had 46 tackles last year in a largelv
backup role. In last year’s LSU game alone he
had 13.
Unfortunately for Jackson, he plays line
backer for Texas A&M —perhaps the team
with the strongest starting four linebackers in
the NCAA.
His big day in the sun was a single play, and
if fans can think of Jackson in no other set of
circumstances that is it.
The Cotton Bowl against Auburn Jan. 1,
1986. On fourth and goal on the two yard line
it was Basil Jackson who stopped Heisman
Trophy winner Bo Jackson.
It turned the game around, and A&M ral
lied for a 36-16 win in the Aggies’ first Cotton
Bowl in 19 years.
And the glory didn’t end there. He was a
starting inside linebacker the beginning of last
year, but a knee injury lessened his playing
time. In the meantime Adam Bob caught on
fire, and Jackson never broke back in.
He still gets plenty of playing time, and in
the 1988 A&M media guide he is pictured on
the inside back cover with the starters. Ob
viously the coaches consider him on a par with
the others.
But he doesn’t start. So he remains “the
other one.”
But that doesn’t matter that much, Jackson
said.
“That happens,” he said. “I don’t compare
myself to those guys. I figure on them being in
the starting lineup as of now. They should get
the publicity. I can’t say anything bad against
those plavers.
Photo by Kathy Haveman
Basil Jackson, pictured here at Tuesday prac
tice, hopes to recover from a shoulder injury
in time to face LSU Saturday in Baton Rouge.
“This team is built on a certain perfor
mance level, and if those players play at a cer
tain level I see no reason to change who’s in
the starting lineup.”
He said that just because he doesn’t start
See Jackson, page 19
Rational people become lunatics over football
What is it about
football that makes
people not act like
people? Why do
normally non
reactive people
suddenly shun all
integrity and give
over to the spirit of
a football game?
I have a few
ideas on this, being
a long-time
sufferer of what I
will call a condition.
First of all, there
are the athletes.
Right in the thick of things, it may be less
obvious to them that they are suffering
Jerry
Bolz
from this condition. All they have to do,
however, is to watch a post-game film, and
they find themselves murmuring, “That
was me?” or, “Did I really do that?”
Take, for instance, former Aggie
defensive back Chet Brooks.
During a game, Chet was obviously
showing the other team that there was a lot
more to consider than his 5-11, 190 pound
frame. He continually taunted the
opponents’ offense w ith his own play-by-
play, on-the-lleld commentary. He often
tried to drive it home with a post-whistle
shove, blow to the helmet or other
broadcasting device.
Now, in the classroom, (diet might as
well have gone by his real name, Terrance.
In the one class I had with Chet he only
opened his mouth when the prof wanted to
talk football. And even then, any verbage
had to be coaxed out.
And did he ever have a smile. Chet
couldn’t make a mean face walking across
campus if he had too. But I venture to say
that there wasn’t a w'hole lot of pearly white
flashing through his face mask out on Kyle
Field.
A popular theory by those who think
there is no such condition is that being
agressive is just part of the game. If this is
the case, then why do fans suffer the same
way as the players. In fact, many fans have
more severe cases than the average player.
Another “for instance” or two.
I remember in the late 1970’s when the
Cowboys lost to the Rams in the playoffs. 1
had just about had enough of their playoff
antics so I picked up my freshly emptied
Cowboy milkshake mug and hurled it as
hard as an eighth-grader can hurl. The
pieces hit the carpet like a Texas Stadium
fumble and immediately I knew something
was w rong.
Though I certainly didn’t know Chet in
1979, I was suffering from the same
condition that he was. The tricky thing
about this condition is that it isn’t always
violent.
Football started out as a game. People
started out having fun playing and
watching others play. But somehow it has
developed into more of a disease, like
whooping cough or something. But there is
also a less obvious side to the condition.
Just a few weeks ago, my Dad and I were
enjoying the Steelers-Eagles preseason
game. The next thing I know, the Steelers
score on a long pass. And my almost always
rational, calm, 47-year old Dad Hies off the
love seat and does a standing triple-jump in
the den.
Now I know that Dad will be happier
when I graduate in May than he was when
the Steelers scored, but there is a good
chance that there won’t be any attempt to
break his triple-jump record in the
bleachers of Jolly Rollie.
This sort of thing doesn’t just happen in
the privacy of a home, either. The majority
of the students on this campus remember
last year’s A&M-LSU game.
After their victory, a number of Tiger
fans, who are well-known sufferers of both
See Column, page 19
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