FAYETTEVILLE — Eddie Jackson was disappointed about his trip from Houston to the Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club. He was the speaker for the luncheon Tuesday and no one asked him to cook.
That may be what everyone thinks Jackson does these days, but he was still perfect on the stage at Mermaid's, a seafood restaurant. That's where his personality shines brightest.
Jackson has been cooking all his life, it just wasn't until after his five-year NFL career ended that he realized his calling was in the kitchen.
“It was almost like I was in a depression for two years,” he said. “I'd always thought I was just going to be a football star.”
It was about that time his father asked him to make a list of his favorite things. Cooking hit him square in the face. Eventually, it led to his current gig with the Food Network, hosting a couple of reality cooking shows.
It should have hit him during his football and track days at Arkansas (2000-03) when teammates paid for his fare out the backdoor of a house shared with receiver George Wilson near campus.
“I had a 50-gallon cooker,” he said. “I'd cook for them. It was the back door special, maybe meatloaf and potatoes or chicken.”
It was free until he realized his teammates would pay.
“I'd go to Walmart and buy chicken quarters,” he said. “You'd get a huge bag for about $5. Then, I'd sell it back for $5 a plate. I'd make $50. That was good gas money.”
The funny part, the gas was for an old Ford Probe that he hauled teammates back and forth to practice.
“We would pack about seven or eight guys in that thing,” he said. “It didn't have air conditioner and it had no power steering. You had to get some speed built up, then you could turn it.”
Those stories came before Jackson stepped to the stage. But he's always on stage, with a smile made for TV. He was at his best while taking questions from the packed house.
What about his secret ingredient for his top recipes? I asked that question for the benefit of the group, then later as I worked to enhance my own barbecue cooking. No secrets were revealed either time, but he was truthful in his answer for the group.
“It's love,” Jackson said. “Everything should be cooked with love. You can tell when it's half-assed, it wasn't cooked with love.”
Jackson's huge personality was evident as he talked about the love his two grandmothers put into their cooking.
“They were both chefs, so I learned early,” he said. “I had no formal training, but we were always talking about cooking. It all started for me at age 5 when I helped my grandmother cook biscuits for the kids at school.
“My first job was making sauce for a pizzeria when I was 15. I didn't have any formal training, but you learn best from trial and error.”
When he decided to give cooking a serious try, there were long days that started with a big grocery list and hours of time in the kitchen.
“I burned up plenty of roasts,” he said. “I'd cook 12 hours a day. I tried combinations, going for the different layers of flavors. That's what it's all about.
“My friends got to taste it and there was some bad stuff. That's how you learn to cook.”
Oh, he can cook, or he wouldn't have made it big on Season 11 of the Next Food Network Star. But he knows it wouldn't have happened without his personality.
“When I went to the Food Network audition in Austin, I knew if I was going to do it, I'd have to be true to myself, really put me into it,” he said. “That's what I do with everything I've tried. I work my butt off.”
That meant being the same character teammates loved at Arkansas. It was always about maintaining a great attitude.
“If there is one thing I want everyone here to take out of this today, it's that attitude and choices are why you achieve everything,” he said. “You have a choice to have a good attitude.”
There were times that his attitude could have slipped at Arkansas. He came to Arkansas to be a great running back, but found Cedric Cobbs, Fred Talley and Brandon Holmes already on campus.
“I could have had a bad attitude then,” he said. “I moved to wide receiver, but we had Anthony Lucas, Boo Williams, Michael Williams and Sparky Hamilton there. I could have had another bad attitude. I didn't. I moved to cornerback then.”
There was one constant in all of his ups and downs, his father's advice.
“When I got here and they had all of those great running backs, I called my dad and said I was coming home,” he said. “My father told me then what's he's always said, 'Play it out.' And when I moved to wide receiver and that didn't work, I called and he said, 'Play it out.' That was always the message.”
An injury put him in the starting lineup just a few weeks into his freshman season.
“It was in Little Rock against Boise State, and the first play I got an interception and ran it back 60 yards,” Jackson said. “I turn to the stands at the end of the play and there was my dad. He was yelling, 'I told you.' You have to play it out.”
Jackson was a three-year starter with some of the great UA defenders of the school's SEC era.
“I was in a secondary that had Batman Carroll, Lawrence Richardson, Ken Hamlin, Tony Bua and with linebackers like Caleb Miller and Quinton Caver,” he said. “That's a lot of talent.”
Jackson was certain he would be drafted, but a badly pulled hamstring at the end of his senior year knocked him out the spring testing by NFL teams. It still worked out when the Carolina Panthers took him as a free agent. There were stints with the Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots and Washington Redskins, too.
It was some of those NFL friendships that led to his first big cooking gigs.
“Guys would be hosting golf tournaments and I'd tell them I'd cook for free,” he said. “I just wanted to show them I could do it. That led to some catering jobs.”
Then, there was a fifth-place finish in a Master Chef cooking contest.
“My girlfriend entered my name,” he said. “When they called me for the audition, I didn't think it was real and hung up. There were 100,000 contests. So fifth was validation that it was something that I could really do.”
Things may come full circle next year. Jackson promises that his tailgating show on the Food Network will come to the Ozarks for a Razorbacks game.
“We did our first show at UCLA,” he said. “That was awful. I told our producer then that I wasn't going to do it anymore if we didn't come to Arkansas for a show next season.”
As Jackson was leaving the TD club event, someone asked for the perfect tailgate food.
“It's chicken wings,” he said. “You have the wing in one hand and a cold beer in the other.”
Eddie Jackson sold his answer with an ear-to-ear smile. It's what he does.