Zak Keefer | IndyStar

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He was this jolt of energy and optimism, the burly jock who wasn’t afraid to dance and sing in the high school musical, the college freshman who showed up to football tryouts with his cleats in a Walmart sack and a self-belief that was unshakeable, the brother to nine siblings who facetimed each because a simple call wouldn’t let him see their smile on the other end of the phone.

He was the walk-on who became a team captain and backbone of the defense, the adventurer who spent a Christmas break in Costa Rica teaching the locals how to play American football, the never-met-a-stranger college star who lugged a GoPro across campus for an entire year just so he could take a selfie with every member of the student body.

He was the longshot who hosted a draft day party, then never got the call, the fighter who moved back in with his parents and took the 4 a.m. shift at UPS just to keep his dying dream alive, the too-small linebacker from the too-small program who scraped his way to an NFL tryout, then to an NFL roster, then to a starting job with the Indianapolis Colts.

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He was the teammate who’d convince his buddies to play rock-paper-scissors in line at Chipotle – loser buys, of course – and the motivational speaker who’d share his stunning story of inspiration with anyone who asked, from the schoolkids back home in Atlanta to a classroom full of students at Harvard. He was that bubbling personality, that light-up-a-room smile, that unbreakable spirit that belied an edge for being overlooked every single day of his life. “I needed that chip on my shoulder,” he’d tell his brothers. “I needed it.”

Then he was gone, and it didn’t seem right, and it didn’t seem fair. Edwin Jackson was 26 years old, bursting with joy about where he was in life and where he was headed. When football was over, his family says, he was going to be a movie star, a speaker, a traveler, a philanthropist. He was going to move people, inspire them. “Edwin truly loved pleasing a crowd,” his older brother, Adam, says.

Then he got into an Uber one night and never made it home.

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Matthias Farley, the teammate Jackson was closest with on the Colts, stood in a cornfield outside Bremen, Ind., his two German shorthair pointers by his side. Edwin was supposed to join him for a hunting trip that weekend, but chose to stay in Indianapolis – finally healthy after a lost 2017 season, he wanted to be fresh for a workout Monday morning. Farley got the call from David Thornton, the team’s director of player engagement. He sank to his knees and began to cry.

Willie Fritz coached Edwin at Georgia Southern, and was sitting in his office when the news flashed across the ticker on the bottom of his TV screen. He froze. “One of my all-time favorites,” Fritz says, his voice cracking, the pain still so fresh. “I got two daughters, and I’d love for them to marry a guy like Edwin one day.”

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Anthony Walker, a teammate who shared position meetings and linebacker dinners with Edwin, was in a hotel room in Miami when the text popped up on his phone. He called Thornton immediately. “This isn’t real, right?” he begged. “DT, you’re playing with me, right. Right?”

Chris Ballard, the Colts’ general manager, was the first to get the news, his phone buzzing in the early morning hours of Super Bowl Sunday. The team’s head of security was on the other end, telling him one of his players had been killed in a car accident. Then he told him he'd call back in a half hour and tell him which one.

A few hours later, Ballard left the scene of the crash in a panic, desperate to get the news to Jackson’s family. Hours later, Mary Jackson’s phone rang while she sat in church. Then again. Then again. Who is this? she kept wondering. Everyone knows I’m at church right now.

It was the team chaplain for the Atlanta Falcons, who’d been asked by Ballard and the Colts to break the news to the Jacksons in person. Mary never answered her phone that morning, so the chaplain walked through the doors at Big Bethel A.M.E., pulled her into a classroom and told her that her son was gone.

***

Jenna Watson/IndyStar

Ballard was shaken that morning, frantic that the news media would break the story before he could reach his team. So he huddled with Thornton, and the two crafted a 242-word text message they fired off to every player on the roster. It’s how the Colts found out they’d lost one of their own.

For the first time he can remember, Ballard didn’t watch the Super Bowl, no matter that the head coach he’d agreed to contract terms with, Josh McDaniels, was calling plays for the New England offense. He spent Monday crying, Tuesday crying, opening his office door to any player who needed to cry with him. When McDaniels called him Tuesday night, telling him he was backing out of the job, the conversation lasted all of five minutes. Ballard didn’t want an explanation.

What lifted him from the darkness of Jackson's untimely death was the family in Atlanta that refused to feel sorry for itself, that celebrated instead of mourned. Ballard was awed by the Jacksons – their strength, their faith, their love. He spent most of the funeral in tears, consoled by his wife, Kristin. He left inspired. Edwin Jackson was impacting those around him in death just as he had in life. He was picking them up.

“To watch how his mom and dad handled it, and how they truly believed he was in a better place ... it gave me a lot of strength,” Ballard says now, still struggling to find the words. “God had a bigger plan for Edwin. They believed that. And that changed me. It did. That changed me.”

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The crowd shuffled into Big Bethel that morning and didn’t stop. “Never seen it that packed that in my life,” Edwin’s younger brother, Stephen, remembers. “Had to be thousands in there.” Those who couldn’t get a seat watched on TV screens in the basement. Cam Newton, a high school teammate of Edwin’s, was there. Same with Adam “Pacman” Jones. There were current Colts and former Colts, Jackson’s teammates from college and high school, friends who’d known him for years and friends who’d met him once.

“So powerful,” Ballard remembers. “It lasted four hours, and we could’ve stayed for eight.”

Colts owner Jim Irsay not only paid for the funerals of Jackson and his Uber driver that night, Jeffrey Monroe, who was also killed, but offered up his private plane to any player and their family who wanted to attend. Jack Doyle, whose locker was just two spots down from Edwin’s, took him up on it. “It gives me chills just talking about it right now,” Doyle remembers. “You went into the church feeling down, feeling really sad, and you leave feeling better. Like, actually better. The way his family spoke about him, and believed he was in a better place? That made you feel happy.”

In front of the crowd, ex-Colts coach Chuck Pagano spoke about his smile – “God, it could light up a room,” he said. Willie Fritz spoke about his attitude – “He’d grab me before we went on the field and tell me, ‘Coach, we’re gonna have a fantastic practice today!’ Gosh, if they were all as easy to coach as Edwin, you’d do it for free.” Stephen Jackson spoke about a brothers' bond. “He’d text me at 6 a.m. to make sure my day was starting off right,” Stephen said. “To me, that’s true love.”

Courtesy of the Jackson family

Ballard spoke about family. “Without the Jacksons, I don’t think I would have made it through those two days,” he said. “You’ve inspired me to treat people differently.”

To this day he keeps in touch with them, texting the parents, even Edwin’s brothers. “How you doing?” he’ll ask Stephen from time to time. “Every day is a challenge,” Stephen will type back.

“They love each other, they protect each other,” Ballard says. “God doesn’t tell us when it’s our time. That’s why you gotta enjoy the good and the bad. If I learned anything during this whole time, it’s ... you know what? I like it all. I like it all. I like dealing with the hard questions, because I feel fortunate to be where I am. I will never take a day for granted ... this all happened in the middle of the Josh stuff, and that’s what kept it all in perspective.”

Then he goes back to the Jacksons, and their strength amidst unspeakable tragedy.

“They’re special, man. That really solidified how I want to raise my children.”

***

Courtesy of the Jackson family

Adam Jackson misses the midday facetime calls he’d get from his little brother, the ones that began with Edwin chirping, “Guess what? Guess what?”

Matthias Farley misses their life talks, the ones where they’d discuss what they wanted to do after football. Edwin had goals. He wanted to travel, to share his story, to give back to his community. “He wanted to inspire people,” is how Farley puts it.

Stephen Jackson misses their workouts together, the ones where Edwin wouldn’t let him quit. “Let’s go Steve!” he’d shout. “We can do more! We can do better!”

Henry Jackson misses his smile. “The best mentor I could’ve ever asked for,” he says. “My brother and I talked every day.”

The Jackson family – both parents, all nine children – will be on hand for the Colts’ home game Sunday against Houston, where the team will honor Edwin’s life. The players will wear EJ decals on their helmets, the coaches EJ pins on their polos. The Colts will present a $25,000 donation to the Edwin Jackson 53 Foundation, which Adam runs, and which will award scholarships to walk-on athletes with big dreams, same as his brother years ago.

“We’re telling those who are selected that we believe in you,” Adam says, “and that Edwin believed in you too.”

The driver of the truck that fatally struck Edwin and the part-time Uber driver giving him a lift, Jeffrey Monroe, was sentenced to 16 years in prison last week. (Monroe worked full-time at Allison Printing Systems in Indianapolis, and was saving for a trip to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo with his wife.) At the time of the crash, driver Manuel Orrego-Savala's blood-alcohol content level was nearly three times the legal limit. Police later found an open bottle of alcohol in his car.

“Our hearts have been ripped apart and are always missing a beat now,” Mary Jackson told the courtroom before the sentencing.

Matt Kryger/IndyStar

Her son lives on, in the story he wrote, the odds he overcame, the life he lived and the people he touched. “Edwin had a short life, but it’s not over,” Stephen says. “He’s here with us. I still think about those times he’d stop what he was doing and teach me something. I can still hear his voice.”

“Edwin's not sad right now," Farley says of his teammate. “And if he knew we were sad, he'd be pissed at us.”

Adam Jackson remembers the time Edwin was asked to speak at a summer camp. The director begged for 30 minutes of his time; Edwin gave him three hours. “I had to literally drag him out of the building,” Adam says. “He wanted to make sure he spent time with every kid there. He had kids literally hanging off him. We left and he was soaking in sweat.”

Eight months after the accident, a family is left with memories like that one, photos and stories and moments that bring a smile to their face and make them miss him like crazy. To those who knew him, loved him, coached him, played with him, laughed with him, cried with him, that was Edwin Jackson, that smile, that energy, that charisma. “Why was he always smiling? Because he was living his dream,” Adam says.

About a month after the funeral, after the shock had worn off but the sadness still lingered, Adam was sitting on the couch with his wife, Kandis. They were eight months pregnant, a baby boy due in weeks. They had a name picked out but decided to scrap it. Something about it just didn’t feel right.

That baby boy came kicking and screaming on March 31, healthy and beautiful.

Edwin, they called him.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.

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Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson killed on I-70