Jackson, however, is equally critical of some big universities with mammoth sports programs, where winning becomes all-important. "Coaches treat athletes like workers who must perform," he says. "It's crazy to have a 16-and 17-year-old with the pressure of a multi-million sports budget riding on his shoulders."

In his travels, Jackson found instances where an entire school's football squad had "C" average and "were on the ropes academically." This contrasts with Jackson's own experience with athletics. Though he just barely held a spot on his junior high basketball squad, he grew up in a city that encouraged participation. But the "bottom line was education." "Most people don't realize the difficulty our athletes face. After having been dictated to all through their school careers and because of their commitment to sports, they close down certain avenues of opportunities. For 99 percent of them it [sports] leads to a dead end."

Jackson describes his attraction to sports journalism as the "closest way to get involved with sports and also learn about people."

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in communications, Jackson immediately went to work in the sports department of the Milwaukee Journal. Soon after, in 1978, Jackson brought his typewriter and interest in New York sports rivaries to Newsday.

But after covering professional baseball, basketball, and tennis for two and a half years, he has grown less enthralled with the individual games," and prefers doing more comprehensive leatures and issue pieces. Although he thinks Baseball is the quintessential American sport, covering it, be admits, is "disastrous for family life." "Basketball was fun but I hated to travel in the snow." Jackson's own sports fantasy would be to play professional tennis. "You could lose a ton of matches and still make a lot of money playing in warm weather," Jackson jokes.

While at Harvard, Jackson will play a "hacker's game of tennis, and think about running in the Boston Marathon." He also plans to commute to his home in New York each weekend to visit his wife, Michelle Holmes '77, also a 1982 graduate of the Medical School.

When he returns to Newsday, Jackson might consider writing for another section of the newspaper to explore his interests outside of sports. But he adds, "Sports is still the premier drawing card of newspapers," says Jackson. "Even for the Law School students I talked to, the sports section is still the first thing they turn to."