Rembering Lucious Jackson, the pride of Pan-American

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008 | 2:47 p.m.

NOW:

UNLV played Texas-Pan American in basketball Tuesday night, which reminded me of Lucious Brown Jackson -- the other Luke Jackson.

The real Luke Jackson, as far as I am concerned.

Yeah, I know the Luke Jackson from Oregon, the one who plays for the Trail Blazers, can handle the ball and shoot it a little bit.

But he didn't have a bald head, sweat like a coal miner and pound the backboards as if they were tough cuts of meat that needed tenderizing.

With all due respect to former Pistons center Otto Moore, Luke Jackson was the best basketball player ever produced by Texas-Pan American. When he played, it was just Pan American, though. I remember that's what it said on my basketball card.

Maybe that's why I liked him so much. He played at a college I had never heard of. At first, I thought it was an airline. Plus, he had a cool-sounding name. Lucious Jackson -- like an action hero. He and Richard Roundtree could have cleaned up Harlem and the St. Louis Hawks before lunch.

Luke Jackson was one of the mainstays of those great Philadelphia 76ers teams of the 1960s that included Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham, Chet "The Jet" Walker and Matt Goukas.

Richard Roundtree, in case you've forgotten, was Shaft.

I'm not the only one who thought Lucious Jackson was cool, or at least had a cool-sounding name.

The alternative pop-rock group Luscious Jackson is named for him. Band members apparently were sitting around watching SportsCenter one night when one of the anchors mispronounced Lucious Jackson's name as "Luscious." They thought that would be a great name for a band.

Here's what it says one one of the Luscious Jackson Web sites:

Four girls, Jill Cunniff, Gabrielle Glaser, Kate Schellenbach and Vivian Trimble, make up the New York based band known as Luscious Jackson. Formed in 1991, they took their name from basketball pro, Lucious Jackson. She played for the Philadelphia 76ers, earning the nickname "Luscious" Jackson.

She?

Uh-uh.

Anybody who ever saw Lucious Jackson play basketball would never draw that conclusion.

THEN:

Absolutely true story: When I was a kid, I would soak a sweatband with water before we played basketball, thinking that when I stood at the free throw line, it would help me sweat droplets that would fall onto the court, like Wilt Chamberlain.

Some kids dreamed about scoring 100 points like Wilt. My goal was to have a guy with a towel run onto the court to wipe up my perspiration when play switched to the other end.