The Fire Within: The DJ Jackson Story

34 Spring 2018 | Vol 3 Issue 3

The Fire Within

THE DJ JACKSON STORY

Story by: Connor Lyford ‘18 Photos by: Leo McCabe ‘19

You may have seen him before. Maybe you have seen him roaming the halls, rocking a black hoodie that reads “#D1Bound” in red and white font. Maybe you have seen him on the basketball court; sometimes he throws up a few shots or puts a little pressure on an injured knee that probably isn’t quite ready for his 42 inch vertical. You have most likely seen the most of him on the football field, or even in highlight videos, the former Regis Jesuit starting running back has a knack for finding the other team’s end zone. There is, however, a Da’Veion Jackson (DJ) that you have not seen: one that masks a past filled with violence and isolation. One that has always carried a single mentality: to never give up.

Realistically, DJ should not be where he is today. Not because he hasn’t worked hard enough, but because there were days where DJ did not know if he would wake up in the morning. The 18 year old Regis Jesuit senior spent the early years of his life in Mobile, Alabama in an area filled with violent crime and gangs. This is an area often referred to as ‘the hood,’ a label placed on neighborhoods that lie on the opposite side of paradise. DJ was too young to understand a world outside what he saw in his neighborhood, the environment around him is the environment he grew accustomed to.

“It’s hard for me to be in a nicer neighborhood and not be paranoid because I’m used to hearing gunshots, that soothes me now. That’s the atmosphere I expect to be in,” he said.

After spending his first seven years of life trying to understand the world around him in Alabama, DJ moved out to Colorado with his mother and two little sisters for a chance at a better life. He came to Regis Jesuit High School to continue a career in football. “Football to me is love, its passion, it’s my heart.

So football was my way out. There are a lot of brothers that grow up in the hood where sports are their way out,” he said.

Before coming to Regis Jesuit, DJ played youth football for the Park Hill Pirates.

One day, practice was called off early due to a shooting nearby. DJ and his best friend, a teammate of his on the Pirates, walked to the nearby Hiawatha Davis Rec Center. “This car went by us, but they were going kind of slow, then they hit the brakes and turned off the car. We didn’t really think nothing of it being as young we were, we were only eight or nine years old,” said DJ. Suddenly, they started shooting.

“I just kicked into survival mode. I ducked down, tried to get behind a car.”

The gunshots ended. The car sped off. DJ yelled for his best friend.

He heard no response.

“After I stopped being so shook up about what was going on, I turned around... My friend was sitting there, gasping for air, blood coming out of his mouth…” said DJ. DJ shook his friend, holding his head up, “Its gonna be alright, we gonna be good,” he pleaded.

There was nothing else he could do.

DJ will never forget the night he lost a friend that he looked at like a brother. Today, he has multiple tattoos which are dedicated to the memory of his friend. It could have been very easy for DJ to leave football and give up on a world that had wronged him at such a young age.

But DJ did not stop fighting.

“I was never raised to give up. It was always, fight through the good times, fight through the bad times. When reality hits you, its gonna hit you hard. You either gonna get knocked down and stay down or get up and whoop reality’s ass and make something of your situation,” he said.

Other than the loss of his friend, DJ’s life in Colorado leading up to high school went fairly smoothly. However, as he began high school, DJ and his family were left homeless due to unforeseen complications.

This lasted from his freshman year through his sophomore year. His time at Regis Jesuit served as a polar opposite to his life after school, as he experienced the riches of Regis Jesuit and the struggles of the street life all at once.

“There are kids like me who have been through it, nowhere to go, sleeping under the bridge. I didn’t live with my sisters because we had to send them off so they could be under a roof, and I was just with my mama,” DJ looked back. “I will bet my whole life savings that nobody in this community had to go through that and withstand what I had to withstand. I am not saying it isn’t possible, but the people here do not fully understand what that life was like,” DJ said.

Adam Smallwood, a Regis Jesuit senior who played wide receiver on the football team, offered to drive DJ to and from football practice after finding out about his situation.

“We have been good friends since freshman year, so driving him places was the least I could do. He was very deserving, a really hard worker, and a fantastic athlete. Both of us shared some common traits, so I think that is where our friendship really grew,” said Smallwood.

The two even ran track together, so they carpooled to those practices and games as well. To this day, the two remain close friends. Smallwood recently signed to play football, he will be attending Colorado Mesa University in the fall.

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After two years living without a solidified place to call home, DJ’s family found a house to live in. He followed this large step with a breakthrough rushing season his Junior year in football, and received looks from multiple big-name schools.

This certianly wasn’t due to a lack of effort. “You see that fire in him when he is playing football. He definitely plays with a little chip on his shoulder,” says Regis Jesuit Head Coach Danny Fillman.

He created a deadly running tandem alongside his cousin, Kiahn Martinez, who is currently a Junior at Regis Jesuit.

Kiahn grew up with DJ in Colorado, the two shared many experiences together and both constantly pushed themselves to be better football players. Kiahn actually decided to come to Regis Jesuit because of his older cousin, and they have always looked out for each other.

“Me and DJ always talk, if one of us is struggling, we pick each other up. That’s my guy, I love him to death,” said Kiahn. “He gets on my nerves though,” he added with a laugh.

(Kiahn is slated to carry the torch at running back next year after DJ graduates.)

Then, as DJ started his final season of football, the unthinkable happened. DJ partially tore his ACL in the fourth game of the season. At first, he knew something was wrong, but refused to admit that he could lose his final season, especially

stuck in the house outside as the guns were reloaded. So, while near the line of fire, on the ground shielding two others from bullets, still recovering from a torn ACL, DJ also made sure that people had a chance to escape during breaks in the fire. He found a quick second to escape out of the only possible exit, throwing the two girls out to safety with him.

After safely getting to his car, he realized he had been shot in the leg, but knew he had to make a quick exit as more shots rang out nearby. As he entered his car, a group of police pulled in front of him.

With guns drawn, they ordered DJ to exit the vehicle.

“I was more scared of the police than the people shooting at that point, because I already knew what was going on in the world,” he said.

An officer yelled at DJ, telling him he had three seconds to get out of the car, but DJ had a problem with his keys. “I was trying to tell the officer my key was stuck in the ignition, but he was not hearing it. Then he started counting down, so it was either get out of the car or be the next black man on the news, unarmed and dead. I thought ‘forget it,’ and hopped out the car,” DJ said. As he tells it, another officer came up and cocked his shotgun, threatening to kill him if he moved.

DJ spent the rest of the night at the police station, he was questioned and eventually released, delirious from the

you love something, no matter your liv“When ing situation, if you grind for it you gonna get

it.

with offers from schools on the line. DJ somehow managed to play two more games on the injured knee, but fully tore his ACL and meniscus, sidelining him for the rest of season.

Things took another turn for the worse as DJ decided to go out with some friends one weekend. They decided to drop by a small party they had heard about. DJ had just thought he was going to kick it with some old friends, but the party had blown up with people once they arrived.

A fight started to break out, and the crowd gathered around. Suddenly, guns were drawn and shooting started. From what DJ saw, four people started shooting. Two girls that were at the party stood nearby DJ as the shots rang out (The two have chosen to remain anonymous due to the nature of the situation).

The girls, who are close friends of DJ’s, were stuck behind the line of fire. DJ immediately tackled both of them, shielding their bodies from the fire with his own. “I’m glad DJ was there because I don’t know if I would have been able to get on the floor as fast as I did. He likes to say that he didn’t do anything, but I’m pretty positive he saved both of our lives” said one of the girls.

Bullets had hit the wall right above where the three were lying down. “Had I would have still been standing up, I would have been hit for sure,” she said.

DJ also somehow managed to instruct others that were 36 Spring 2018 | Vol 3 Issue 3

PERIOD blood he had lost from being grazed by a bullet on the leg. DJ, among many other things, is a black teenager in America. He was raised knowing that the system may not always favor him, and that some people may be quick to judge him based on his race.

“I’m a black man, I got dreads, so I’m already “threatening” as they say. I go to Regis, but you won’t know that unless I tell you. You would probably think I’m part of a gang, smoke drugs, sell drugs, probably have a criminal record, been to juvy once or twice,” DJ explained. “Being a black man, no matter where you are in the United States, when you are born, you already told you are gonna go to jail. You already set up to go to jail, they got you a bunk and everything. Try not to be a statistic.

That’s something I was always taught- Don’t be a statistic, don’t give people something else to put against you when they want to take you down,” he continued.

The narrative changes as DJ starts talking with someone. “I’ll have a sophisticated conversation with someone. I’m telling them my dreams, my aspirations, how I want to be a doctor, blah blah blah. They hear my vernacular and they are shocked, then I tell them I go to Regis. They are like, ‘Oh wow, a black kid from the hood made it in to Regis? How? About to graduate from Regis? How?’ No matter where I go a white woman will clutch her purse, no matter what it is. I could be trying

“

to help like ‘oh, you dropped this.’ But they are going to automatically take me as a threat because of what society paints us as. I just wish it wasn’t that way, because not all of us are the same,” he said.

The young football star has seen plenty of gang violence in his time and has encountered plenty of gang members throughout his 18 years. He has had friends die at the hands of gangs, and watched as many other friends joined gangs themselves. Both of the shootings that DJ described were at the hands of gangs.

“I was never in a gang, I never thought about joining a gang. I have never been influenced by a gang, because my mom always preached to me that it wasn’t right and kept me on the right path. I had an older friend that joined a gang, but he made sure I stuck to going to school, doing this football thing. Everybody else sees it before you see it when you’re younger,” DJ said.

Even with the stream of violence that is associated with gangs, DJ asserts that gang members can be some of the most positive members in their communities.

“No reason is good to join a gang, because it all has bad consequences. But a lot of those kids (like me) don’t have a father figure, so they are looking for that male role model in their life.

You hear your friend got shot up, your friend’s house got robbed, he got his shoes taken, that guy got his chain snatched. You ask yourself, ‘am I gonna be next?’ So a lot of kids seek out the gangs for protection. There are young minors looking for protection and love and guidance, but they are just getting the wrong kind,” he said.

There is no doubt that, since his time as a young child in Alabama, DJ is climbing the ladder to success. He attributes most of his success to his mother, who raised him and his two sisters and built a lifestyle from very little. DJ’s two little sisters are dancers, and they travel for competitions. DJ is planning on attending a preparatory school next fall with hopes of playing college football in the future.

From here, the sky is the limit for Da’Veion Jackson.

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