In Bucs Throwback Thursday, I take a stroll down memory lane and offer up my own personal insight and anecdotes on days gone by in Tampa Bay football history. Let me know what you think of the Bucs Throwback Thursday column in the article comments.

Before offering up a new Bucs Throwback Thursday, I pay my respects to the late, great former sports editor of The Tampa Tribune, Tom McEwen, who often started his column “Breakfast Bonus” describing a large, southern-style breakfast in detail before turning the column back to sports.

In all the sports news journals including Tampa, McEwen will always be a legendary writer. He changed the sports column of the Tampa Tribune and amazed the world with his uniquely described 10,000+ column. He is mainly considered the light of the sports world due to his hard pushing of bringing back the professional franchise in the city life. If you’ve read enough of McEwen’s magnificent columns and have adequate knowledge to bet on sports, then grab a voucher code comeon as a head start. When Tampa was growing he took the charge on his shoulder and reach people with the things that they don’t know, linking with the sports which brought him more popularity.

Starting your morning with a mouth-cleansing glass of semi-bitter unsweetened Florida grapefruit juice, a vegetable omelette with onion, mushroom, bell pepper cooked in it and fresh Ruskin tomato diced on top, a piece of country ham with red-eye gravy and stone ground grits, here is this week’s Throwback Thursday section.

Whether it is the fish of a lifetime that breaks your line right near the boat, or the girl who leaves you at the alter, most of us have a story about the “one that got away.”

For Bucs fans and the organization, their biggest heartbreak and their own version of the “one that got away” was former Auburn running back and 1985 Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson.

Jackson’s story began in Bessemer, Alabama as the eighth out of 10 children. In 1982, following a brilliant, three-sport high school career, Jackson was drafted by the New York Yankees in the second round. Jackson chose to sign with Auburn University instead of signing with the Yankees, and excelled in both baseball and football.

Jackson’s college career culminated with him hoisting the Heisman Trophy after his senior season in which he rushed for 1,786 yards and 17 touchdowns while averaging 6.4 yards per carry. Jackson ran a 4.13 in the 40-yard dash at 6-foot-1, 227 pounds and finished his Tigers career with 4,303 rushing yards and 43 rushing touchdowns with a 6.6-yard career average. The road to NFL stardom was just a few months ahead, at least that was what most expected – including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But as most Buccaneers fans know, Jackson never played a down for the franchise, and the blunder to take Jackson despite his assurances that he wouldn’t play in Tampa Bay was something that crippled the franchise for years to come.

During his senior season, Jackson was midway through his final baseball season for the Tigers when Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse sent his private jet to Auburn to bring Jackson to Tampa for a pre-draft meeting. Jackson said the Buccaneers had assured him that they had checked with the NCAA and Jackson’s visit – and trip on a private plane – was not in violation of any NCAA rules.

Former Auburn RB Bo Jackson – Photo by: Getty Images

After returning to Auburn, Jackson was warming up for a game when his coach summoned him. In a 2012 ESPN 30 for 30 special, Jackson recounted the conversation with his college coach.

“Coach said, ‘Bo did you take a trip last week on Hugh Culverhouse’s jet down to go visit Tampa?’ I said, ‘Yeah, they (Buccaneers) said they checked with the NCAA and they said it was okay.’ And he said, ‘Well Bo, they didn’t check and the NCAA has declared you ineligible for any more college sports. So you can’t play baseball anymore.’ And I sat there on that ground and cried like a baby.

“I was (already) thinking about not going to Tampa Bay, but this – what the officials at Tampa Bay told me personally it was okay – I think it was all a plot now to get me ineligible from baseball and they saw the season I was having and they thought they were going to lose me. I told Hugh Culverhouse, ‘You draft me if you want, but you are going to waste a draft pick, I promise you that.’”

I had a chance to interview Jackson about the ESPN film in 2020 and he explained more.

“Now, my visit there, I met with some of the veteran players for Tampa Bay,” Jackson said. “They actually took me to dinner. We went out, and to make a long story short, they said, ‘Man, if you play in the coming year, they are going to run you to death, and that – I am not sugar-coating it or trying to make it sound bad, but these are words from veteran Tampa Bay players that was already there, ingrained in the system.

“That kind of weighed on my mind a little bit, but three days later when I found out that I was ineligible to play baseball because they lied to me and told me that it was okay to get on the plane and go take my trip because I went on other trips also, but I flew commercial, and they said, ‘Sure, we checked, everything is all right,’ and that kind of didn’t sit well with me. I figure if I’m honest with you, please have the respect for me to be honest with me, also, and they weren’t. And that kind of sealed the deal as far as, no, I wasn’t interested in Tampa after that.”

Culverhouse, despite the warning from Jackson that he would never sign with the Buccaneers made the decision to take him anyway. By doing so the Bucs were left with absolutely nothing from the No. 1 overall pick in 1986, and in turn passed on players like 12-year NFL quarterback Jim Everett (34,387 passing yards) and defensive end Leslie O’Neal (six Pro Bowls, 132.5 sacks) among others.

Former Raiders RB Bo Jackson – Photo by: Getty Images

But what if Jackson had signed with the Buccaneers? Would the postseason drought that led to 12 playoff-less years in Tampa Bay have continued?

First, let’s look at the roster offensively in 1986. The Buccaneers had Steve Young at quarterback, who had come over from the defunct USFL. Young was 3–16 as a starter and threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55 passes of his passes. Young’s two years in Tampa Bay didn’t give the team much hope that he was their future. But what if Jackson was on the team? What if Young had both Jackson and James Wilder to rely on in the running game?

Tampa By boasted Jimmy Giles and Calvin Magee at tight end along with Jerry Bell and had Phil Freeman, Kevin House and Gerald Carter at receiver. While most were aging veterans they were still solid players, and Wilder was an excellent option as a receiver out of the backfield.

The Buccaneers drafted Vinny Testaverde with the overall No. 1 pick in 1987 after shipping Young off to San Francisco where he went on to help win three Super Bowls and make the Pro Bowl seven times before being inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Would Jackson have changed the fortunes of the Bucs franchise? Would he have helped Young finally have success in Tampa Bay in 1986? An 8-8 or 9-7 record in what would have been Jackson’s rookie year would have prompted the Bucs to keep Young and the franchise wouldn’t have had the No. 1 overall pick in 1987. Instead of drafting Testaverde, the Bucs could have perhaps drafted cornerback Rod Woodson, linebacker Shane Conlon, wide receiver Haywood Jeffries or an offensive tackle to help up front like Harris Barton or Bruce Armstrong.

It’s unclear how Jackson would have helped the Bucs had he signed with the team, but he proved to be an incredible athlete elsewhere, eventually playing baseball with the Memphis Chicks and with the Kansas City Royals, and also moonlighting as a part-time running back with the L.A. Raiders where he earned a Pro Bowl berth in 1990 before a severe hip injury ended his professional sports career.

Former Royals outfielder Bo Jackson – Photo by: Getty Images

It is only fair to hear both sides of the story, and while Hugh Culverhouse, Sr. has been dead for over 20 years, his son, Hugh Jr., spoke to me in 2012 and told a different story than the one Jackson explained.

“We tried to convince the NCAA that we had spoken to someone and if it was a mistake, it was clearly an honest mistake,” Culverhouse, Jr. “The fact of the matter is, Dad didn’t know the rules. Dad was a businessman. He didn’t even know a lot about the game of football altogether. To say Dad was plotting to get Bo ineligible is ludicrous. He would have done anything to get Bo on the team. He genuinely wanted Bo.

“Bo needs to look at himself. Effectively what Bo is saying is, ‘I am stupid.’ I let this NFL team and an organization take advantage of me. Well (I would say) ‘Bo you already had an agent. You already had advisers. You already had Auburn University who could have told you, ‘Bo, no.’ So don’t come out of here playing stupid and accusing my Dad of doing something first … it would have been the last thing he would ever do. The one thing I can tell you is, dad loved Bo. It was a mistake to draft him. But Dad loved Bo.”

Former Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse – Photo by: Getty Images

Culverhouse’s ego got in the way of his decision-making in the spring of 1986. Whether you believe Jackson’s story or Culverhouse Jr.’s version of why Jackson was so miffed with the Buccaneers’ organization, Culverhouse bet on his ability to sign one of the most incredible athletes the sports world has ever seen, and he assumed Jackson would cave when offered the richest rookie contract (five years, $7.6 million) in the history of the NFL.

Except Jackson didn’t. And the rest as they say, is history.

The Bucs have made scores of blunders over their 44-year history, and there will be plenty more. Every NFL team screws up. However, the Bucs, especially early on, perfected screwing up.

And 34 years later, Jackson is still the Bucs’ poster child for the “one that got away.”

– Bo Jackson in creamsicle photo created by Samer Ali

VIDEO THROWBACK

When a team like Tampa Bay goes 2-14, for the second season in a row, there aren’t a ton of highlight reels or games floating around the internet. Fortunately, I found this 1986 match-up against the Los Angeles Rams with Steve Young at quarterback for the Bucs. The Rams had Eric Dickerson at running back, and I wonder how this game would have turned out if Bo Jackson was on the field for the Bucs? Maybe not much different, but you never know.