North Jersey Male Athlete of the Week outshining his fabled father on the court
Johnny Jackson never had a chance.
When the picture taken in your crib on the day you were born has a basketball in your little hand, the dye is cast.
Not that he's complaining.
"He wants to play at the highest level he can," Ridgewood coach Mike Troy said of Jackson. "He spends every waking minute trying to get better.''
Jackson is the son of former Ridgewood great Joe Jackson, an All-Bergen player who graduated in 1994 and went on to play at St. Michael's College in Vermont and as a walk-on at Villanova.
He had a great career with the Maroons, but his only son is on track to break all of his dad's records.
For one, dad was never The Record's Athlete of the Week.
"He's really happy about that," Johnny said. "He never got anything like that and he and my mom have always been my biggest supporters."
Dad also was Johnny's first coach, teaching him the game and guiding him until the eighth grade.
It wasn't always easy.
"He was pretty tough on me at times and I was pretty tough on him and we got into some (verbal) fights," Johnny said. "It just made me play harder and want to be better."
But once Joe turned the development over to Troy and AAU basketball coach Mike Rice (yes, the former Rutgers coach) and could simply be dad again, both Jacksons prospered.
"He's really relaxed now and any expectations I have for my own game are personal to me," Johnny said. "I never really saw him play until my uncle (Joe's brother Pat) showed me a mix tape on YouTube of him in high school and college. I had seen him play some pickup basketball but never realized how good he was until I saw that."
Troy calls the younger Jackson a game changer.
"He's the ultimate competitor and he has the ability to the stretch the floor, and he's more of an inside/outside player than his dad. Even at 5-10, he scores more inside the paint, although he's also a great 3-point shooter," Troy said. "As a freshman, he helped us win a sectional title off the bench and he's started for us the last two years. He sees the floor very well and can make shots like Steph Curry can, three or four feet behind the (3-point) line. And he's always trying to work on all aspects of his game to get better.''
One thing Johnny is concentrating on is getting his fiery competitiveness under control.
"Teams try and get physical with me and I have to learn to keep my cool," he said. "I got a technical foul in our first game and I was disappointed in myself. But I'm an upperclassman now and I've got to get past that."
One way he gets a release is to go surf fishing with his grandfather at Spring Lake. "I love to catch striped bass and then release them. It's so much fun casting with your feet on the sand and hanging out. It relaxes me.''
Johnny is closing in on 1,000 points, something his dad came up 11 points short of in his high school career.
"He missed nearly 15 games with injuries or he would have had more than 1,200," his son said proudly.
Unspoken is the Ridgewood boys basketball record of 1,508 points, held by former University of Virginia standout Tim Mullen, who graduated in 1981.
"If he stays healthy, he's going to go right past that," Troy said.
Johnny Jackson
Sport: Basketball
School: Ridgewood
Class: Junior. Age: 17
Accomplishment: Johnny scored 35 points in an opening night in a win vs Passaic Tech and followed that up by hitting the game winning 3-pointer to beat Teaneck, the last of his 24 points that night.
Also nominated: Kevin Haskaj of Bergen Charter and Andrew Adegbite of Pompton Lakes for basketball; and Jake Baratta of Northern Highlands for ice hockey.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergen Record Male Athlete of the Week: Johnny Jackson, Ridgewood
