With the Rams for five seasons, Jackson went on to play another four seasons with New England, one season with Minnesota, and one season with Seattle. All told, the five-time Pro Bowl receiver had a 16-year career, playing in 208 games, and totaling 579 receptions for 10,372 yards and 76 touchdowns.
"I get letters every day, and each one of them wants to know why you're not in the Hall of Fame. Because when you retired, you had over 10,000 receiving yards and 76 touchdowns. And back then during that time, we weren't throwing the ball like they're throwing it now," Jackson says.
"I had some folks in my hometown, they had a petition going around, and they were pushing that petition about why Harold Jackson is not in the Hall of Fame. If I was on TV as a sports announcer or whatever, I'd have been in the Hall of Fame. But when you're out of sight and you're out of contact with the sport, people forget who you are."
One person who didn't forget Jackson is Hall of Fame wide receiver Raymond Berry, who was his position coach with the Patriots. And when Berry became New England's head coach in 1985, Jackson called to congratulate him. Little did he know that conversation would lead to a successful second gridiron career.
"He said, 'Give me your phone number where you're going to be when the season opens,'" Jackson says. "I then had flown home to Mississippi, and the phone rang. It was Coach Berry. He said, 'Harold, I've got this idea. I want you to coach my receivers.' And when he said that, my jaw dropped because something I did not want to do is coach. I used to look at the coaches and they never went home. They were always in the office.
"So, I said, 'Coach, I'll be back in L.A. in about a week.' And he said, 'Well, just think about it and give me a call.' Twenty minutes later he called back and said, 'This is the amount of money that I'm going to be able to pay you.' I said, 'OK, Coach. I'll give you a call when I get back to L.A.' I hung up the phone and 20 minutes later he called back, 'Have you thought about it?'
"And when I got back home to L.A., a contract with the Patriots was sitting in my mailbox.
"I talked to (to Rams Head Coach) Chuck Knox, and he said, 'Go give it a year and if you don't like it, get out of it. Because in this game, they'll forget who you are real fast.' So, I called Coach Berry and told him, 'I think I'm going to take the job.' And that year, we ended up going to the Super Bowl (XX against Chicago). I said, 'Wow, this ain't bad.' So, after that, I coached for 10 years in the league."
Besides the Patriots, Jackson had stints as a wide receivers coach for Tampa Bay and New Orleans. His 23-season résumé also includes being a position and head coach in the Arena Football League, the United Football League, and for five college football teams including Baylor.
"I said, 'You know what? Somebody put something into me. They thought that I had a chance to play in the league. So, this is a fine time for me to put something back into somebody.' And that's one of the things that I always enjoyed," says Jackson, who is now retired and living in Los Angeles with his wife, Carolyn.
"I used to tell them, 'Never let nobody tell you what you can't do.' That's what I'd done. I never let nobody tell me that I could not play football. That's what I tried to teach them. And that's how I always treated my players no matter where, in college and the pros."
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