Jackson springs into action with gracious sneaker gift

Pierre Jackson, formerly of Desert Pines High School, now of the Baylor Bears, won the Big 12 basketball scoring title this season with an average of 19.8 points per game.

Ben McLemore of Kansas was second at 16.4.

Pierre Jackson stands 5 feet 10 inches. Ben McLemore stands 6 feet 5 inches. Romero Osby of Oklahoma, third in the Big 12 in scoring, stands 6 feet 8 inches.

That’s what makes this a pretty good story.

When I spoke with Jackson on Sunday, he was watching Brittney Griner throw down dunks and reject shots for the Baylor women against Prairie View in a first-round NCAA Tournament game. Griner stands 6 feet 8 inches.

When I asked how it might have turned out if Jackson were Brittney Griner’s size, he said for starters, we probably wouldn’t be talking, that as much as he values a college education, he’d probably be playing pro ball somewhere for large sums of cash. And not in the Turkish league.

But there’s an even better story about Pierre Jackson than his ability to score the basketball, as the TV analysts say, and his ability to make guys a head taller than him look silly on a basketball court.

A couple of weeks before the start of practice, Jackson was shopping for sneakers at Champs Sports in Waco, Texas, because if there’s anything Jackson likes more than making guys taller than him look silly, it’s basketball kicks.

(He says he owns dozens of basketball sneakers but not a single pair of dress shoes. He wears black Vans to church on Sunday and mostly gets away with it.)

Jackson overheard a mother telling her young son that he couldn’t have a certain pair of sneakers because they were too expensive.

Jackson had heard it before. He remembered when the grandmother who raised him and his three siblings said he couldn’t have a certain pair of basketball shoes because they cost too much.

So Jackson introduced himself to 12-year-old James Johnson and his mother, Bridgette. James was shorter than Jackson, but Pierre could see they had similar-sized feet.

Jackson explained that he was a sneaker head, that he had all kinds at home, plus the free ones he gets playing for Baylor. Even some that weren’t bright yellow. He said he would like to give James a pair of his shoes, provided it was OK with his mother.

They arranged to meet and Jackson gave James Johnson not one but two pairs of shoes: a pair of adidas and a pair of LeBron-model Nikes, still with the price tags, still in their original boxes.

James’ mother posted a photo on Instagram and a message about God being good, about Pierre Jackson being good; Jackson posted back on how seeing the Johnsons smile like that had made him smile.

Bridgette Johnson could not afford to repay Jackson in the traditional way. But she said she could reciprocate with a home-cooked meal, that she cooks a mean pork chop. This made Jackson smile, too.

“It hit me at home,” he said about growing up modestly and not always having high-tech basketball sneakers with high-tech swooshes, because high-tech swooshes cost extra.

“His mom cried on the spot. Just to see his mom’s tears of joys and how happy he was made me super happy.”

The story made a lot of social media people happy, too, because a lot of time when you read tweets about big-time college basketball players, it’s tawdry stuff, or how they lie about their age, or how they take bad shots when they should be passing the ball to the big guys in the paint.

“KU fan but a Pierre Jackson fan for good now,” posted someone called jordiynfulton.

It should be noted this was before Jackson scored 28 points to lead Baylor to an 81-58 victory over the mighty Jayhawks on March 9 in the regular-season finale.

I don’t know if jordiynfulton was watching. But Linda Allen, Pierre’s grandmother and legal guardian, was, and she was watching live at the Ferrell Center, and that was the first time Pierre’s grandma had been on an airplane.

It wasn’t quite enough to get Baylor into the Big Dance, but the Bears are 2-0 in the Little Dance, with victories over Long Beach State and Arizona State. And if they can beat Providence on Wednesday, they’ll earn a trip to the National Invitation Tournament Final Four in New York City, at Madison Square Garden.

Pierre Jackson said he never has been to New York, that finishing his college career with a Garden party would be a really cool way to close it out.

Here’s hoping he gets it with the price tag in its original box.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski