Before Lamar Jackson would become a Heisman Trophy Winner
Before he would set a Louisville college football record passing for 8 touchdowns in the first
half of a game
Before Jackson would be drafted to the Baltimore Ravens
Before critics would say that Lamar should switch positions:
Before Lamar Jackson would throw for 324 yards with 5 touchdowns in the 2019 season opener
and became the youngest quarterback to have a perfect passer rating.
And before he would have close to 300k followers on Twitter and over a million followers on
Instagram
Lamar Jackson is off to a red hot start in the 2019 season, but it wasn’t that long
ago that many critics were doubting his ability to play quarterback.
Let’s take a step back for a second:
From college coaches, to draft analysts, everyone told Lamar Jackson to switch positions because
of his insane speed and ability to run with the football.
But Lamar believed in himself and knew that he was born to be great as a QB.
Early on in his life, he dealt with the tragic loss of two family members on the same day,
but his mother became his biggest mentor and helped him remain strong.
And today, Lamar’s critics are pretty quiet.
What’s going on guys?
It’s your boy Jeremy Hecht and I’ll be your host today walking you through the life
and career of Lamar Jackson prior to fame, here for you of on course, on Before They
Were Famous.
We’ve recently covered other football players like Patrick Mahomes and Michael Thomas, but
we have so many guys left to do, so you got to let us know who to cover next in the comments
down below!
Before we start, I’ve got a trivia question for you:
“Which play during a high school practice made Lamar Jackson’s coach restructure the
team’s entire offence around Lamar?”
Alright, I’ll see you after the intro.
Lamar Demeatrice Jackson Jr. was born on January 7, 1997 in Pompano Beach Florida.
Lamar lost his father when he was just 8 years old and lost his grandmother the same day.
During the tragic time, his mother lifted him up, told him not to cry and said that
they were going be something one day.
Felicia Jones was more than just a mother to Lamar.
She was his mentor, his coach and his first trainer.
Felicia lead her life and raised Lamar and his younger brother based on 8 core values:
“God, prayer, faith, family, education, sacrifice, character, discipline.”
But football wasn’t always Lamar’s passion.
In fact, at first, Lamar wasn’t that interested in the sport.
But his mom signed him up to play anyways to give him something to do.
And immediately, it was clear that this was his calling!
He outran everybody on the field in his first season with defenders barely able to lay a
finger on him.
Nearly every time he touched the football he could score a touchdown easily.
And quickly, Lamar changed his mind about the game.
Felicia saw the talent that her son had and knew that he had a chance to become something
special.
So, she signed him up to train with a guy named Van “Peanut” Warren.
Warren was a local coach who specialized in developing quarterbacks, and after he saw
Lamar throw him a 20-yard bullet pass to him, the two began to work together weekly.
Felicia would sit on the bench and study the quarterback drills that Warren would put her
son through.
Then, she would replicate the drills at home with a young Lamar.
Lamar and his younger brother would put on their equipment and practice in the backyard.
Even Felicia would dress up in full gear and would help her sons practice by tackling them.
Lamar talked about the time period in an interview stating:
"People don't believe me.
She was an athlete.
She used to play basketball.
She saw what we were able to do, and she'd go back there and play football with us.
She was just making us tougher because she's older, so she's bringing power that we're
not used to feeling.
We didn't take it like anything different."
Lamar admitted that his mom did tackle them a few times, but eventually, his speed became
far too quick for his mother to ever come close to stopping him.
It was at that point that they moved on to weighted workouts, which were mandatory and
took place 6 times per week!
She continued by running the sprints for his 8-year-old team during practices.
And long after Lamar went on to college, Felicia continues to run practices for the next generation
of kids using her 8 core values.
Lamar actually played Pop Warner Football against Marquise Brown.
In high school, he started his career at Santalaces High in Lantana, Florida but Lamar transferred
30 miles to Boynton Beach high school.
At first, his grades were so low that he wasn’t going to be allowed to play.
So Lamar stepped it up in the classroom and earned straight A’s in all of his classes.
That allowed him to step onto the field.
And once that happened, well let’s just say the competition was left in the dust.
The athletic director recalls one of the first moments that he was wowed
by Lamar’s skills:
One of his friends and teammates says his favorite Lamar Jackson moment was his step
back play that looked almost like a basketball move:
And his coach said:
Lamar cut out all distractions and focused solely on his goal of becoming one of the
greatest to ever play.
One of his former classmates said that Lamar went straight home from practice every night.
He didn’t hang out and didn’t go to parties.
He was focused on studying and on his dreams.
Lamar’s teammates began to join him for Sunday workouts led by his mother and Warren.
Jackson says some of his teammates either threw up or couldn’t finish
the workouts.
But Felicia only had one rule for her workouts.
She wouldn’t make her kids do anything that she couldn’t do herself.
She once bought a 300-pound tire and a sledgehammer to flip and hit across the backyard.
So, leading by example, Jones joined in on the workout.
That’s dedication!!
But all of that extra work paid off.
He had over 3000 yards passing and more than 2000 yards rushing in his junior and senior
seasons combined.
His high school coach John Carter called him “Michael Angelo with a football.”
But even with all of his high school glory, he was still only listed as a three-star recruit
and in some places as a four star.
A lot of coaches wanted to convert him into a running back or wide receiver.
He was able to go from goal line to goal line without getting touched by a single defender,
with speed and agility that most running backs don’t even have.
Lamar was also on his high school track team and ran for a record of 11.45 seconds in the
100-meter dash.
But Lamar knew that he wanted to be a quarterback and he believed in himself.
Even Louisville coach was skeptical at first:
After receiving 15 scholarship offers, Louisville was his first choice.
But he actually almost de-committed to attend University of Florida after a last minute
visit.
He decided to go with his gut, which was telling him to fly with the Cardinals in Lousiville.
One of the main reasons he decided to honor his commitment was assistant coach Lamar Thomas.
Thomas played for Boynton Beach’s coach, Rick Swain at Gainesville Buchholz, who also
coached Lamar Jackson.
And Thomas was the one who recruited Jackson.
After accepting an offer from Louisville, he was excited to get started with the playbook.
But when he first looked at the teams plays, he says it was one of the most confusing things
he had ever seen.
Lamar says it looked like he was reading foreign letters.
So, he would wake up early every morning and go through film sessions with his coach.
As a Freshman in 2015, he played in 12 games with 8 starts and passed for close to 2000
yards along with almost 1000 rushing yards.
'
Jackson won the MVP award at the 2015 Music City Bowl after he passed for 227 yards with
2 touchdowns.
And he only got better from there.
In the first game of his sophomore year, Lamar set a school record with 8 touchdown passes…
And all of them came in the first half!!!!
But it turns out, the first half thing wouldn’t be an anomaly.
Against Syracuse, he scored 5 touchdowns in the first half and against the #2 ranked Florida
State, he had 4 rushing TD’s in the first half.
Jackson lead the Cardinals to their highest ranking in almost 10 years!
His performance lead to him winning the Walter Camp Award for player of the year, the Maxwell
Award for best all-around player in college football, and on December 10, 2016, he was
selected as the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner over Deshaun Watson, Dede Westbrook, Jabrill
Peppers and Baker Mayfield.
That made him the first player in school history to hoist the Heisman trophy!
At Louisville he threw for more than 9 thousand yards passing with 69 touchdown passes, more
than 4,000 yards rushing with 50 rushing TDs.
But despite the awards and the stats, there were still a lot of doubters.
NFL correspondents and draft analysts thought that Lamar should switch positions away from
being a quarterback.
But because Lamar knew what he wanted and continued to believe in himself.
He declined to run the 40-yard dash during the NFL scouting combine, and opted to only
focus on his passing skills.
With the last pick in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft, Lamar Jackson was selected
by the Baltimore Ravens.
4 quarterbacks were selected ahead of him, but this only fueled Lamar’s fire to prove
everyone wrong, and himself right about his abilities.
In November of 2018, Lamar made his first NFL start against the Cincinnati Bengals replacing
Joe Flacco at quarterback.
Jackson went 13 of 19 for 150 yards along with 117 yards rushing, which became a franchise
record for rushing yards by a quarterback.
In the season, he finished with 1,200 passing yards, 6 passing touchdowns, and lead the
league in quarterback rushing yards.
He also became the youngest quarterback to ever start a post season game.
This year, he looks to shut up anybody who still has doubts about his ability to play
quarterback at the highest level.
And it seems like he may have already done that with his first game of the season.
He passed for a career high 324 yards with 5 touchdowns and became the youngest quarterback
to have a perfect passer rating.
But he’s been doing impressive things for a long time.
On the first day of spring practice in high school, he ran an option play 60 yards untouched
to the house!
That play is what inspired his coaches to change their entire offense.
And there’s the answer to the question from the beginning of the video.
But as for the rest of the story, well we’ll have to wait and see, because this, is before
they were famous!