Carmichaels’ Jackson lived a life made for Hollywood
A Hollywood script writer would love Terry Jackson’s life story.
‘I can see in my life’s story,’ Jackson said. ‘I can see how the Lord had my back when I wasn’t faithful and I wasn’t paying attention. I though I was going here and I ended up over here and called it a blessing. My whole life has worked out that way.”
Jackson was a three-sport standout at Carmichaels High School in the 1960s. He played football, basketball and baseball.
“Stonewall” Jackson, as he was known, was part of some very competitive Carmichaels football teams that posted records of 5-2-1 in 1963, 5-4 in 1964 and 7-2 in 1965.
“I started at offensive left guard and I played linebacker on defense,” Jackson recalled. “My oldest brother transferred from Saint Vincent his junior year and was ineligible to play, and got his picture in the team pictures, but he never was allowed to play. He was smaller than me and I was tougher than him. I was 5-8, 180 pounds as a sophomore, and I was probably 190 when I graduated. Today’s game, I would have been a fine running back if they worked me in the weight room.
“When I was a sophomore, Coach Fred Stuvek, who we called, “The Bear,” knew he couldn’t keep me on the bench. He had Billy Porembka, who was a senior and was at fullback, and I played guard and linebacker. When Porembka graduated, I moved to fullback and had a breakout game in the first game, when I scored three touchdowns against South Union. I scored a touchdown at German and separated my shoulder on the next play. I got a special pair of pads, but I couldn’t raise my right arm. Tom McCombs was also hurt our junior year, and our offense suffered in that 5-4 season.”
Jackson scored five touchdowns and an extra point as a junior for 31 points. He had a very good senior campaign with eight touchdowns and two extra points for a total of 50 points.
“We were a nice club in 1965,” Jackson offered. “We were upset by Jefferson, 14-7, and then Albert Gallatin got us, 29-7. They were bigger than we were.”
Jackson looks back fondly at his relationship with his former Carmichaels coach, Stuvek.
“Fred Stuvek either loved you or didn’t,” Jackson said. “His son, “Twig,” used to say that I was one player that his dad always talked about at the dinner table. I loved “Bear,” too, but if you did everything he asked you to do, he had your back. He was a very straight shooter, old school tough.”
Jackson also played varsity basketball for three seasons on teams that finished 8-11 in 1963-64, 4-16 in 1964-65 and 13-8 in 1965-66.
Jackson tallied three points as a sophomore, 25 points as a junior and 155 points as a senior.
“Look, I was a scrub,” Jackson joked. “I was only out there because I was an athlete and I wanted to compete. It wasn’t about starting, I was a team guy. That’s how you get to be president of the senior class and president of the student council your junior year, and that’s what attracts Yale to you.”
Jackson has a soft spot for his former basketball coach at Carmichaels, Red McCombs.
“I loved Red,” Jackson said. “Red was just a great man, and I loved the McCombs boys.”
Jackson also played baseball in high school.
“I really liked baseball,” Jackson stated. “Today, I miss baseball more than I miss football. I loved baseball, but I’m passionate about football.”
When Jackson graduated from Carmichaels in 1966, he was pursued by several schools, including Navy, Air Force and Penn, but wound up playing in the Ivy League.
“I never go to Yale if Mike Baker, the coach at Waynesburg, doesn’t mention me,” Jackson stated. “A Yale recruiter, Brad Krosnoff, came in from Bentleyville. Yale was sick of losing to Harvard and Princeton, and they are hitting the bushes. Krosnoff goes into Waynesburg and Coach Baker tells him I don’t have anything for you, but you need to drive down to Carmichaels and see Terry Jackson. Baker’s wife was our librarian and I lived in the library. So I was found by Yale by accident.”
Jackson played frosh football at Yale in 1966, and then was part of a football resurgence for the Bulldogs, who posted records of 8-1 in 1967, 8-0-1 in 1968 and 7-2 during Jackson’s senior campaign in 1969.
“For a three-year period, we had the most wins for Yale at that time,” Jackson explained. “My junior year, they asked me to move to guard, my response was, ‘is this going to get me on the field?’ They said, ‘yes,’ and I moved to guard.”
Jackson played in the famous 29-29 tie with Harvard in 1968. Harvard made what is considered a miraculous last-minute comeback, scoring 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie the game against a highly-touted Yale squad. The significance of the moral victory for Harvard inspired the next day’s Harvard Crimson student newspaper to print the famous headline, “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29.” In 2010, ESPN ranked it No. 9 in its list of the top ten college football ties of all time.
Yale came into the game with a 16-game winning streak and its quarterback, Brian Dowling, had only lost one game when he was in the starting lineup since the sixth grade. Both schools entered the game undefeated and untied with 8-0 records. It was the first time both schools met when undefeated and untied since the 1909 season.
The tie left both teams 8-0-1 for the season. The famous headline was later used as the title for “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,” a 2008 documentary about the game directed by Kevin Rafferty.
“The Ivy League and us would never have been talked about if we finished up 9-0 and ranked in the Top 20,” Jackson said. “We were ranked going into that game with Harvard. We had great players like Calvin Hill and quarterback Brian Dowling. I was on the field for the crucial onside kick during the comeback. Yale makes the perfect kick and they recover it. I come flying in and launch with what we call a fan block. He wasn’t paying attention and I was so frustrated that I drilled him.
“What I felt at the moment when the game ended, 29-29, and I took my helmet off, and looked around, does God really has a sense of humor? It’s like the hand of God came down from the sky and said, ‘You ignorant Yalies haven’t beat these people in awhile and you started waving your white handkerchiefs much too early.’ I’ve got to teach you a lesson.”
Jackson also played baseball at Yale.
When Jackson graduated from Yale, he taught and coached at Woodmere Academy on Long Island for three years. He then attended the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. He went to work selling coal for Consol in Michigan in 1975. He went to Texas and worked for Phillips Petroleum with their coal unit. Next stop North American in Cleveland, then Anchor Energy in Morgantown, West Virginia. He moved to Houston and Great Western Coal. He returned to Anchor, and by this time, he had a wife and five children. He went the entrepreneurial route after that with various coal enterprises.
Jackson, 69, is divorced, semi-retired, and resides in Carmichaels.
“I’ve never been in the military or jail,” Jackson summarizes. “I remain grateful not hateful.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.