“You know the real reason my uncle was cut, don’t you?” asks David Irons, a workout specialist who trains NFL players.
Irons’ mother is Leroy’s sister. He has known Uncle Leroy all his life but only in the last few years has he learned of Leroy’s connection to NFL history. Irons has two sons who played football at Auburn and in the NFL, and he works daily with professional football players, yet Leroy never said a word about his Redskins career, never showed him scrapbooks or photograms, or talked about his place in NFL history. Nor did he talk about the release from which he never recovered as a player. The answer to that came from another of Irons’ uncles, who let slip an incident from 50 years past.
“It wasn’t about fumbles,” Irons says.
He pauses for a moment, about to reveal a family secret.
“They cut him because they caught him in a hotel room with a white woman,” Irons continues. “Can you believe that? They cut him for something that’s so common today. It’s unreal.”
Over the phone from his home in Atlanta, Irons’ voice rises with anger and then calms. Leroy was angry when he learned that Irons had been told the story behind his release. But suddenly everything made sense to Irons. His uncle’s reticence, the hesitation to talk about his career, the distance he sometimes felt with Leroy. The secret behind his release had been holding him back.
“He needs to be free,” Irons says.
So on a rainy late-summer morning, Leroy Jackson drives the mile from his home to RFK Stadium to do a video interview for this story. He talks of his childhood and his college career and his trade to the Redskins. He tells of that one meeting with Marshall and the first game in Dallas. He smiles as he remembers the day he caught the 85-yard pass against Baltimore. Then he gets to the release after the Pittsburgh game.
“They said I was fooling around with different people and stuff like that,” he says. “But who doesn’t fool around? I wasn’t married at the time so whatever I did on my own time was my business.”
Later he says, “Football was my job, what went on outside was outside.”
He stops.
“What else do you want to know about that?” he asks.
Do you think it was about a woman?
“I think it probably was about a woman,” he says.
What was the reason you were cut?
“Interracial things and not being able to hold onto the ball,” he says.
He says he found this out after he was cut. He says he was told that two coaches voted against his release but were overruled. Marshall was already disabled by a stroke, meaning the decision came elsewhere in the organization. Leroy does not know who made the final call.
The trouble with Leroy’s claim is that it’s impossible to confirm or deny. Most everybody involved – Marshall, McPeak and most of the coaches are dead. Others memories are shaky. Even Leroy seems to have long put aside the incident that might have destroyed his career. A few weeks after the video interview he takes a call while sitting at home and is asked about what he had said.
“Nothing ever bothers me,” he says. “What happened has happened in the past. Most people let things worry them – not me. Whatever it is, I drop it and move to the next thing.”
With that he goes into another afternoon of a marvelous life. The world may not know Leroy Jackson. He might be a forgotten footnote in football history but he doesn’t seem to mind. He simply disappears back into the bustle of a city that sees him every day but has no idea how important he really was.
Article Appeared @http://sports.yahoo.com/news/football-thursday–redskins–forgotten-racial-pioneer-lives-with-mystery-of-his-short-lived-career-210938052.html