Jackson in Action: How Donte Jackson made his wildest dreams come true

Carolina Panthers cornerback Donte Jackson opens up about a life, family and legacy spanning New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Charlotte. 

Donte Jackson looks down, then locks eyes with his opponent.

He thinks about the film he’s watched, scanning the receiver for tendencies and tells. He watches each step, practicing his own cuts so he can dart back and forth on routes that zig and zag. Sometimes he waits, lurking in afternoon shadows to snatch interceptions and take them to the house.

As he’s contemplating all that, as his mind races faster than his body — and Donte is fast — his focus is fixated on someone else, too.

She’s not on the field. She’s probably in the stands or at home, dressed in Carolina blue and black. No matter where she is, her eyes are on Donte. She’s watching his every step, analyzing his movement and taking it all in.

Donte is her superhero, but it’s not because he’s a marquee cornerback for the Carolina Panthers, a leader in the locker room, a team captain, a dual-sport cornerback and track star from LSU.

It’s not because he has 14 career interceptions, the most of any player from the 2018 NFL Draft class. It’s not even because Donte battled a season-ending injury and came out of it stronger, signing a contract to remain in Charlotte out of loyalty and love for the team that believed in him.

Donte’s a hero because he’s Dad. And Demi Jackson is the reason Donte gets out of bed every day.

Before the 2022 NFL season began, Donte took a moment to reflect on his raisons d’être. Their names are Demi and Denim Jackson.

“I have two daughters,” Jackson told FanSided. “One is four, and one is five months. Demi and Denim. They’re the reason that I get out of bed every day. They are really the reason why I do everything I do. Very, very close. Close-knit family. Me and my girl, my two daughters, they are literally everything I have down out here, so we’re very close.”

“My daughters are my babies. That’s my why, and I can’t even explain it. But yeah, the two of them. That’s the two most important things on this earth to me.”

Donte beamed, a proud father searching for the words to describe an inexplicable love. Four years ago, he was caught in the whirlwind of being drafted to the NFL, moving from Louisiana to Charlotte, and welcoming Demi into the world. Donte came into the NFL an accomplished athlete, but like every parent, his world was transformed by the arrival of his daughter.

“Most definitely,” Jackson said of parenthood changing his perspective. “I had Demi right after I got drafted. I was drafted in April; she was born in June. I was dealing with all the draft stuff and just getting drafted and joining a team, and I still couldn’t take my brain off the fact that, wow, I have a daughter. She changed the way that I took on competition.”

“I felt like everything that I did, every one-on-one I had, they were trying to take money, take food out of her mouth. She gave me a different approach on how to view life. Because at the end of the day, you can do a lot of stuff, and the only person you are living for is yourself. You can go out there and make all the types of decisions that you want to make, good or bad. But when you have something else to live for, it makes you think about everything you do. Whether you’re about to make a good decision — you’re about to get millions of dollars — or you’re about to make a bad decision, you’re about to lose this or do this.”

“I think that once I had something else that I was living for, it made me look at everything different. It made me approach everything different and made me start paying attention and being more militant and being more responsible. How I spend my time, how I spend my money, and what I’m doing. I think that she really made me into an adult. It was cool to say, ‘Yeah, I’m grown,’ but I think that she made me grow up and actually be the man that I set out to be once I left college. She was definitely the push in the right direction.”

Demi’s presence was the prism through which Donte channeled lifelong aspirations. Demi made him become the man he wanted to be, but his mother and older brother shaped him into the person he’s become. When Donte reflects on who he is, family is at the center of it all. In Metairie, La., where the Jackson family used to race at the nearby track for fun. And in Charlotte, N.C., where Donte finds himself cooking Creole classics for his teammates — because us Louisiana natives know you can’t find that kind of flavor anywhere else in the world.

The Panthers found a gem in Donte Jackson. And as with the greatest athletes in history, the passion and prowess seen on the field extends to all aspects of Donte’s rich life.

Donte Jackson, the dual-sport LSU standout

Bo Jackson is the prototypical dual-sport athlete, but not because he’s the only one to ever do it. Bo may have done it best, or at least straddled both careers most successfully in recent history, but most young athletes find various outlets for their kinetic and strategic skill. Parents find themselves signing up their kids for summer sports camps, lining up around the diamond or court or field year-round.

For Donte, his sport was track. It was his first love; a family tradition. Track is the sport that taught him who to be. Its individualistic nature, finding oneself in the zone while strategizing when and how fast to sprint: these transferable skills translate seamlessly to the cornerback position. That mindset — that zeroed-in, singular focus — is what sets Donte apart from his competitors.

“I feel like most young kids should run track,” Donte explained. “If you play football, whether you’re the fastest guy or not. Because I think track did a lot for me in the competitive nature. When you feel like you’re out there by yourself and you’ve got to perform, you’ve got to run well, you’ve got to do this, it eliminates the outside world. It’s you versus you. I think that did a lot for me playing the position of corner, when I’m always outside on the island, and I have to lock in a different type of way. I always encourage young guys, like high school players and stuff like that, to get on the track and let it go, regardless of whether you’re known for being a fast guy or not.”

But Donte was known for being a fast guy. In May 2015, shortly after signing to LSU as a five-star recruit, Jackson ran the 200-meter dash in 21.26 for the 2015 4A state title. In fact, LSU described Jackson as the “premier sprinter in the state of Louisiana during his prep career at Riverdale High School.” In 2014 and 2015, Jackson swept state titles in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes in Class 4A, during his junior and senior years. Donte was, verifiably, the fastest kid in Louisiana.

“Yeah, track was always a love,” Jackson explained. “Track was how my family passed on [tradition]. Everybody in my family ran track. Like, track meets were a thing in my neighborhood when I grew up. Saturday morning, the whole neighborhood is at a track. That was just what we did.”

“I always ran track growing up, so track was actually my first love, right before football, for real. And it was something that I did all the way through high school. I’m a four-time state champion in Louisiana for track. So obviously, every school recruited me for track and football because I was a five-star football [recruit] as well. So when I knew I was going to LSU, I would always take track visits, go visit the track side too when I go there.”

“But I always did know that LSU had had a tradition of having guys play football and run track. You’ve got Coach Bennie, he was my coach there. He was a guy who played football and he ran track. You’ve got Trindon Holliday. He was a guy who played football and ran track. I always knew they had guys that did it in the past, so I was intrigued by that. And then being a Louisiana State Champion, of course the track coach is gonna want you to come there.”

Track is categorized as an individual sport rather than a team one, but the culture Donte describes is more communal than is commonly portrayed. Track was a family thing, and his track brothers and sisters at LSU became family, too. Donte may have grown up an hour outside of Baton Rouge, but Louisiana State University attracts global athletic talent to its world-class facilities. While many LSU football players have gone on to win Super Bowl rings, it’s LSU basketball players and track and field stars bringing home Olympic medals. Vernon Norwood won gold in the 4×400 relay in Tokyo 2020. His LSU track teammates were Jackson and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Cyril Grayson.

“My time running track was the best because you’re going to — just like for football — you’re going to a prestigious organization that’s known for winning and that’s known for producing superior guys in this sport,” Jackson said. “As football was, it was like that for track. You couldn’t go in there slouching and thinking, ‘Oh, it’s not gonna be like football’ because it was exactly the same. It’s the championship mindset. Championship grit. Being around the track program, being around my track guys, my track brothers and track sisters, it turned me up a lot. Because it’s like, they’re out here competing.”

“I remember first going out there. I barely practiced for track in high school, then I’m coming to college and I’m on a championship-pedigree team where every person on the team, from the men’s and the women’s, is trying to win championships and trying to lock in and compete and be the best. So when I got there, it was like, wow, I really gotta compete. I really gotta go out and practice. I really got to go out here and take care of my body, get treatment, because they were doing all that. I had my track teammates, they showed me how to be more of a professional and take care of your body because that’s really all you have. I dealt with injuries that I never dealt with in track, and all it did was teach me lessons. I always appreciate my time from being around the track athletes and them having me around for two years because they taught me so much. Just how to be a professional, because they were on it. They were eating right, they wouldn’t party, and they were drinking water. They were stretching, they were doing everything right. It made me look at it like, wow, that’s the type of thing I need to do to get to where I want to be, regardless of how this track and football and all transpires. They really taught me how to be a professional.”

Donte emphasizes that it wasn’t just the track environment where he flourished in his collegiate Baton Rouge home. Attending his dream school was everything to him. The Riverdale graduate used to travel an hour north of New Orleans to race at LSU’s Bernie Moore Track Stadium for those coveted state championships.

With Archie Manning committing to Texas, some LSU fans revived a common talking point: why doesn’t the state retain some of its best football players? It may be true for generations of the Mannings, but it remains untrue for many of the five-star athletes coming up in The Boot. Donte referred to LSU as “DBU”, a nod to how the LSU program has attracted generational talent within the confines of Louisiana’s borders. Some of the biggest names in the NFL, from Tyrann Mathieu to Odell Beckham Jr. to Leonard Fournette, also called New Orleans home. Like Donte, they sought to do the same at LSU.

“It’s everything to me,” Jackson said of being an LSU alumnus. “Being a hometown kid — I’m from New Orleans, Louisiana. LSU was always my dream school. Being in Louisiana, you really didn’t have any choice but to be an LSU football fan. If you watch football, then you’re gonna be a football fan, because it’s all over. It was always a big dream for me, going and taking the field at Tiger Stadium and putting on those uniforms. And everything that comes with it… It was always  a dream because you see all those big names. Like the Patrick Petersons, the Tyrann Mathieus, the Tre’Davious Whites — you see all those guys, doing what they do there. And if you want to take it even further back, the Ryan Clarks, you understand? So you always want to be one of those guys that keeps that DBU tradition going. So when I found out that I was getting recruited from LSU, I automatically knew that’s what I was going.”

For those outside of Louisiana, it’s difficult to describe how much LSU football has a grip on the state culture, at least in South Louisiana. LSU merch is available at convenience stores. LSU tailgates are their own ecosystem, sprawling all over the Baton Rouge campus every Saturday of the season. Even baby showers are LSU-themed. And that’s just for the people who love to watch the game. For the players, it truly is an extended, lifelong family. Being LSU alumni means something in the NFL. Before Super Bowl LV, Devin White, Leonard Fournette and Clyde Edwards-Helaire were a few NFL players to hop in a Twitter conversation before the big game about their LSU ties. They couldn’t help but clown each other, but the brotherhood is real. When Shaquille O’Neal joined Ryan Clark for a sit-down interview on The Pivot podcast, Clark had to break out his LSU purple blazer to welcome his fellow Tiger.

“That’s how you’re doing it?” co-host Fred Taylor joked with Clark, commenting on his purple threads.

“You see the LSU colors!” Clark responded proudly.

In 2016, Fournette enjoyed fame of mythic proportions in Baton Rouge. He graced the cover of local magazines, was a part of every conversation, and even if you didn’t know a thing about football, you knew exactly who he was. Today, playing for his second NFL team, Fournette still wears purple and gold shoulder pads peeking out from his Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey.

“It’s always love, it’s always love,” Jackson says emphatically of being a part of LSU’s rich gridiron legacy. “That LSU connection that you speak about, it’s real. Because no matter what era you were in, what generation you went there, we all knew what you went through to get to where you’re at. We know that going through LSU is not easy. Seeing the generations of the past and them seeing us, and I’m still seeing guys come out, I know that I have that certain bond because I know what it took and I know what you have to get through to be where you’re at, because it’s not easy. I think it runs deep like that. It’s a special bond that we all understand, like, ‘You’re one of the best of the best, because we know what you had to go through.’”

Donte played at LSU during a fascinating time, one that straddled two transformative coaching eras. Jackson played under longtime LSU head coach Les Miles, who coached the Tigers from 2005 to 2016. When Miles was fired after a 2-2 start in 2016, former LSU defensive line coach Ed Orgeron assumed his place mid-season. Orgeron coached the Tigers from 2016 through 2021, overseeing a historic undefeated 2019 National Championship team that went on to make NFL Draft history.

Of course, Donte elected for the draft in 2018, a year before LSU finally saw the glory they’d been building towards during Jackson’s time there. Jackson’s LSU teammates include NFL defensive studs such as Tre’Davious White, Greedy Williams, Grant Delpit, Patrick Queen, and Devin White, to name a few.

Two coaching regimes, both of which ended in considerable controversy, did maintain the standard of LSU football that drew Jackson to Baton Rouge in the first place.

“I mean, it was LSU football,” Jackson said of the coaching transition. “I think both coaches did a great job of embodying that. Whether you’re Coach O or whether you’re Coach Miles. I think Coach Miles did a great job all the time he was there of instilling that tradition and keeping it going, and everybody knows what Coach O did when he took over. I think both coaches were really big on keeping the LSU culture what it is. I think Coach Miles did a great job of instilling a lot of things throughout the organization, throughout the school. And Coach O, having him there was pretty much the same. Both coaches are very intense guys.”

“It was a bit different, playing for both coaches, but it was still LSU football and it had that LSU grit to it regardless. And I think that’s one thing that I’m excited to see about with Coach Kelly. I think that he’s gonna keep that same tradition, keep that same grit, but he’s gonna also add his flavor to it. So I’m excited to see the Tigers this year.”

Funnily enough, Coach Kelly did add his own flavor to LSU football as soon as he accepted the position, going viral for adopting a South Louisiana accent as soon as he set foot in Death Valley. Coach Kelly did also lose the LSU recruit featured in another viral video to none other than Alabama, LSU’s ultimate arch rival for myriad reasons. But the goofy preseason gaffes have fallen by the wayside, because as Donte predicted, Kelly has brought his own brand of successful football honed at Notre Dame and infused with LSU’s competitive locker room culture. The Tigers rank third in the SEC West with a 6-2 overall record and a 4-1 conference record, right behind their Tuscaloosa nemesis.

“I expect those guys to compete this year,” Jackson reiterated. “LSU is gonna always have talent. LSU is always going to have guys who go and compete. It’s just about putting it together. I think we’ve learned a lot having a young team the past couple of years because we lost so much after that National Championship year. I think that [Coach Kelly] is gonna do a great job of putting guys in the right position to be successful. He has a history of doing that with Notre Dame. He always had tough teams who really played hard. With the talent that LSU is gonna continue to get, I can only expect Coach Kelly to be successful.”

Despite the recent turnover at the position, the machine that is LSU football continues to draw in and churn out the best and brightest in football, both within and without the state of Louisiana. The legacy of the school and its storied history of star players works effortlessly to attract young athletes within LSU’s backyard. And the success of Donte Jackson puts a good word in for his alma mater: this is where defensive backs come to pursue championships and excel at the professional level.

Through three years at LSU, Jackson recorded 110 total career tackles, four tackles for a loss, one sack, four interceptions, 19 passes defended, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery. In other words, he did it all. The Tigers occasionally utilized Jackson to charge at the quarterback, his speed making him a nightmare matchup for any offensive line. But primarily, Jackson hung in the secondary, reading wide receiver routes and batting balls in anticipation. His swiftness has been lauded throughout his football career, but no NFL corner can rely entirely on make-up speed. NFL draft analyst Lance Zierlein noted Jackson’s speed, saying he “may be the fastest player” in the 2018 NFL Draft with “elite speed and athleticism.” But Zierlein criticized Jackson’s lacking instincts and 5’11’’ frame, calling his hands “janky and unreliable.”

Donte pays no heed to the critics, whether they’re designating his Madden rating or blaring their opinions of a play on social media. Neither do the Panthers, who have spent the past four years watching Donte develop into the star of Carolina’s secondary.

Donte Jackson, on the prowl in the Panthers secondary

In a league dominated by statistics, cornerbacks are often relegated to their respective islands. For a corner, an inverse statistical relationship is often better than getting all the picks. The best corners aren’t picked on by quarterbacks. One only has to look at what life was like stranded on Darrelle Revis’ infamous Island, or what it meant to be under Gilly Lock during Stephon Gilmore’s 2019 Defensive Player of The Year season.

When quarterbacks are afraid to target the receiver you’re covering, that’s when you’ve made it. Interceptions are winning highlights, but corners who quietly shut down offenses win championships and extensions.

The Panthers decided to bring back Donte Jackson on a three-year, $31.5 million contract this March. NFL Network declared that the Panthers were “bringing back a key contributor to their defense.”

“Jackson has emerged as a reliable member of the Panthers’ secondary and a key veteran presence in what has become a young cornerback group in Carolina,” the article read.

Donte is known as a ball hawk, recording 12 career interceptions before the 2022 season, the most of anyone from his 2018 NFL Draft class. And that’s with only two interceptions through 12 games in 2021 before a groin injury cut his season short. Recovering from that injury after a relatively quiet year may have been enough reason for Donte to fret. But not Donte, and not with the Panthers. Veterans like Stephon Gilmore have come and gone, and the Panthers drafted Jaycee Horn with the No. 8 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. But Donte is a pillar to the budding secondary, evidenced not only by the organization’s faith in him with his new contract, but also by the captain patch he earned in his fourth NFL season.

“It was important to stay with the Panthers because I’ve been through so much with this organization,” Donte explained. “Rookie year, had a great rookie year, promising. My second year was the first year I dealt with injuries. so that kind of hit me hard. So when I came back off injuries, I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t playing at the level that I should have been playing at my second year in the league.”

“And then my head coach gets fired. So after not playing well, I’m kind of thinking, like, ‘Am I gonna be back in? Is the new head coach gonna want me back in Carolina for my third year and my fourth year?’ Dealing with stuff like that and getting a new head coach.”

“Coach Rhule, he expressed how much I meant to the team and how much he wanted me to keep growing as a player in Carolina. So I’m excited. Then, dealing with another injury. Just a lot of up and down in my third year, playing and not playing. I ended up playing really good when I was out there, but I couldn’t stay on the field. So there’s a lot in my head going into my contract year, it’s like, I don’t know what it’s gonna be after this year. But I know I’m gonna go out there.”

“Being through so much, and now, being able to show that growth and show everything that I’ve been through, actually taught me lessons. Showing that to this organization was the most important thing because they’ve actually seen me at my lowest, so I wanted this organization to be the ones to see me at my highs. This fan base, they always picked me up whenever I felt like I wasn’t doing or playing how I was supposed to be playing, so I wanted to be like, ‘See? I knew I was gonna make it to the other side.’”

Donte struggles to find the words to describe what Carolina means to him, but his approach to the game says it all. Chemistry is often an overlooked aspect of football: every tackle, every down, every movement stands on the shoulders of eleven teammates putting everyone in the best position to win. Even though the track star is locked into his assignment on his island, he’s directing traffic, looking out for what his fellow corners and safeties are doing on each play. Without missing a beat, Donte focuses on bettering himself while uplifting those around him. If a rising tide lifts all boats, Jackson’s energy swells like high tide at the Outer Banks.

“It’s all love with Carolina. It’s hard to really explain,” Jackson says. “This is home for me, for real. But this team means everything. I wake up every day trying to be the best teammate. I feel like football’s gonna take care of itself — I’m gonna play football. But I wake up every day, thinking, ‘How could I be a better teammate? How can I lift more guys up today than I did yesterday?’ I think that goes to show you how much these guys mean to me. Team is everything. When I’m done playing football, I want people to talk about what type of teammate I was, not what type of player I was. Football, that’s gonna take care of itself. I’m gonna get out there, I’m gonna play that, but you have to intentionally want to be a good teammate. That’s where my morals lie when it comes to being a captain. I think that’s what my teammates recognized when they voted me as captain in my fourth year. That’s crazy. I wasn’t even thinking like that. Coming in, I’m being myself. I never knew who I was uplifting. And so when those guys voted me as captain, that’s crazy, because they actually understand. They notice me being the teammate that I want to be. Team means everything to me. Those guys are forever.”

Perhaps what speaks most to Jackson’s egalitarian leadership style is his willingness to learn from others. When asked about how he’s helped younger players like Horn, Jackson is quick to note that the flow of information isn’t one-way. The locker room leans on each other, and the locker room learns from each other.

“I’m always giving little pointers here and there, but we have the type of group where I will get points from a younger guy,” Jackson said. “Jaycee Horn will tell me something that I didn’t quite know. Or Keith Taylor will tell me some that I didn’t quite know. C.J. Henderson…I could go on and on. And that’s the type of group we have, we all feed off each other. Even though I’m voted defensive captain, we all really have a voice, especially in the secondary. We all have a voice. We all have something that we can all bring to the table. If you’re a Year One, Year Two, Year Three, because I’m only Year Five. I’m not, so to say, a super OG, so I only could be the leader where we’re all inclusive. We’re all leaders, we all have the same ranking, because at the end of the day, on Sunday, we’re all going to need to have a voice, so that’s kind of like the type of group we have. We have the group that everybody has a voice and everybody really has something that they can say. It’s something that they can put out to the group to make us all better. So I try to be as all-inclusive as possible.”

As defensive team captain and defacto secondary veteran, Donte commends Stephon Gilmore for everything he brought to Carolina during his all-too-short tenure in 2021.

“I learned so much from Steph in the time he was with us, and me and Steph still keep in touch,” Donte said of Gilmore. “We actually worked out together [in July] for a few days. I learned so much from Steph on being more of a student of the game, really breaking down film and understanding what you’re watching. You can get the iPad and watch a lot of stuff, but he actually taught me how to break down what I was looking for on certain times and certain days, stuff like that. I can go all day long about stuff that I learned from Steph because he’s the ultimate professional. When he came to the group, that’s exactly what he wanted to instill in the group. He brought that different type of professionalism to the group that had so many young guys. It was great having Steph. We all wanted to have Steph back with the group, but business is business, however they hashed it out. But me and Steph, we still keep in touch all the time. We still talk. Like I said, we’ve worked out a few times. Yeah, he’s big bro. He’s big bro forever. That’s my guy.”

Donte makes the Panthers defensive locker room sound like a scene out of Ted Lasso, and by spending an hour speaking with Jackson, it’s hard not to find parallels with the show’s infinitely effervescent title character. Donte seems to possess an eternal well of positivity even in the most difficult circumstances, such as staring down an injury timeline before facing contract negotiations. But it all turns out well for Jackson because he epitomizes the theory that the universe gives back what one puts in. As Donte puts it, football is going to be there, and everything he’s spent a lifetime working towards will be there, too. It’s those moments off the field, whether it’s giving advice to teammates, giving back to the community or doting on Demi during training camp that define Donte Jackson.

Donte Jackson, the family man from Metairie

If you had a million dollars, what would you buy?

For most of us, it’s a fantastical question plucked out of imagination. A select few Americans will ever have disposable income that numbers in the millions, especially those who make their own wealth within a lifetime. Without discrediting the lifetime of hard work and sacrifice that it takes to make it all the way to the NFL — and the elite mindset and fortuitousness it takes to stay there — getting to the top rung is akin to winning one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. A fantasy for most, and a reality for a few gilded winners.

Well, Donte is one of them. So what did he do when he inked his $31.5 million deal?

He bought his mom, Yashica Jackson, a house.

“She had a house already, but we actually finalized and bought a new house,” Donte said. “She found what she really liked. That’s probably the one of the biggest things that I always wanted to do. When I got drafted, I got her the car she always wanted, but I always felt like that wasn’t enough. I always wanted to keep going and keep trying to make her proud. Being able to do this for it actually is like one of the proudest moments of my life because she deserved it.”

There’s no wrong answer to the million-dollar question, but Donte’s response is absolutely the right one. When he was drafted, all he could think about was giving back to the mother that shaped him and the daughter that pushed him to become the man he dreamed of becoming. In a full-circle moment, Donte’s NFL ascent was always centered by the women who inspired him to be his best self.

“My relationship with my mom is everything. She raised four of us by herself. Growing up, my pops was in prison my whole life, so she raised four kids. I have an older brother who’s two and a half years older than me, a sister who’s a year younger than me, and a little brother who’s two years younger than me. And she raised all of us by herself, always working and always staying positive as she can. That’s the queen of the world for me. She sacrificed so much to make sure we didn’t have to worry about nothing. She’s everything. You can’t even explain what my relationship with my moms is because it’s everything. And I’m sure all my siblings could say the same thing, because we all recognize — we all understand that everything we try to do in this life is to repay her. Being able to do what I could do for her or what I’ve done for her is everything, but I still feel like it’s not enough because everything we’ve seen that she’s done. Moms is a superhero still to this day, even with her cape in retirement.”

The “most decorated player to come out of Riverdale”, according to Jackson’s high school football coach Brett Bonnafons, grew up in Metairie. While much is written about the five-star recruit out of Riverdale as he committed to LSU, Donte shares what it was like growing up in his close-knit community.

“I’m from a close-knit neighborhood where everybody pretty much knew everybody,” Donte said. “And if they didn’t know you, they know your people. It was sports-driven. My childhood was very sports-driven. I was always in a sport. Whatever season it was in, I was playing a sport — mom’s gotta do something to get all the energy out.”

“I was literally just growing up trying to be like my big brother, trying to do everything he was doing…better. Trying to do everything he was doing, but do it better. I was so competitive with my older brother, and I think that he was the person that kind of propelled me to be elite at everything because he was always so competitive. He was always challenging me to go do stuff, go do better and go work harder than I did. That’s really what it was about, growing up in the neighborhood, I was always trying to get into something. I had the same friends that I grew up with, same friends that I hung with pretty much every day. That’s really what it was, we really didn’t really get into too much. There was a lot of violent stuff going around, but that’s in most neighborhoods, most communities like where I grew up at. You don’t really pay attention to all that because it’s normal.  I can sit here and talk about how there’s drugs and all that, but it was normal, so you don’t really get into it because you’re used to seeing it. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t a big part of my childhood because I never really let any of that get into my head. And huge kudos to my older brother, because I feel like if he was in it, I would have been in it. If he was in the streets, running the streets doing stuff, I would have been doing that. And he understood. He had younger people looking up to him, so he never really took those routes to go do anything like that. And I think that’s what kept us all on the straight and narrow.”

“That’s all I really wanted to do is play sports and compete at something, that was my only thing. My grades were slipping in middle school. I started playing sports for the school, and they were like, ‘You’ve got to keep your grades up.’ So I’m like, ‘I keep my grades up, I can play sports’. And that was it. That’s when I started almost being on honor roll and doing all that, because sports drove me so much to do better in other stuff in my life. I knew I wanted to play football in football season, so I know I had to get a B in Ms. Wilson’s class, so I’m gonna get a B. It was not even a thought. And my mom used to always say, ‘If you would try like that for everything!’ Sports always drove my life, and once I started playing sports, once I started competing and stuff, I always knew what I wanted to do in my life. I never really had a plan B. It was like:

‘What you want to do when you grow up? 

I want to go to the NFL. 

It’s such and such percentage of kids that bla bla bla bla bla…

Well, I guess I’m gonna be in that two percent of kids, I guess, because that’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m content on doing, so… 

What’s your plan B? 

Well, I’m gonna go to the NBA. One of them. Something’s gonna go. That’s all I want to do with my life.’

“Living out my dream, that’s always one of the biggest things to me. I still think it’s so crazy when I wake up and I see my jersey hanging on the wall or something like that. I feel like, ‘Dang, that’s that’s crazy, because this is exactly how I pictured my life going.’”

Even at 26 years old, his fifth year in the league with two children in tow, Donte still looks up to his older brother. It’s all of that — close siblings, a devoted mom, a tight-knit neighborhood — that inspired Donte to make the most of his NFL opportunity.

In a collaboration with Safe Alliance, Jackson has partnered with Naot and Vera Bradley to distribute new shoes and blankets at a local women’s shelter. Jackson has also worked with Operation Warm to distribute more than 300 new coats to children in need. Jackson has also worked with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters programs in Charlotte and New Orleans, teaming up with Academy Sports to distribute bikes and gift cards to children.

Every act of philanthropy is personal when someone chooses to dedicate time and resources to a cause close to their heart. In Donte’s case, he was once in their shoes.

“I was the kid who probably couldn’t get a sweater, couldn’t get a coat or something like that,” Jackson said. “I didn’t have a new bike. And with the women’s shelter, I was raised by all women. My mom has two sisters, she doesn’t have any brothers. My grandma has taught us all. My mom’s pops, my grandfather, he did a lot for us, but for the most part, we were raised by all women, so women will always have a special place in my heart.”

“When I figure out I can go anywhere and help women, I can give women some shoes, give women a bag or some blankets, I’m there. Because at the end of the day, women are the reason I’m where I’m at today. Everything is a personal connection with me. I like to be hands-on with stuff I do. I like to do stuff that I’m actually passionate about, that I have a personal relationship or a personal situation similar to what kids go through. Big Brother, Big Sister, I was fortunate to have my older brother to look up to, but there are kids who don’t have older siblings, who don’t have people in their life to look up to that’s right there. I’m more hands-on, so I want to be that for kids, and I want them to see, like, ‘There’s nothing special about him. He’s good at football. He does this, but he’s a regular person, and he talks to me like a regular person. He treats me like a regular person.’”

“I want to be hands-on. So I want to do stuff that I actually have similar interest in, a similar background and history to. And I love kids. It’s always easy working with kids because I love kids. I love to hear their imagination, what they’re thinking about. I love to ask them what they want to be when they grow up. I love to interact with kids. And I have a daughter. I know she loves new toys, so new bikes? Yeah, I’m sure. I’m in it. What I gotta do to make sure that every kid gets a bike?”

“I don’t really talk about it that much because I’m actually out here doing it. You may not see me posting it. You may not see me talking about it, but at the end of the day, I’m actually doing it. I’m actually out there, hands-on with it.”

Donte says there have been so many meaningful moments through these partnerships, it’s a challenge to pinpoint one. Yet he does recall two of them. Once, Donte was sitting at a table speaking with a child, and it turns out that the child lives in a foster home. Then, it turns out that the child’s older brother is sitting a few tables away, so both children sit together and speak with Donte about their lives.

In another, Donte visited a women’s shelter, and a woman there broke down crying because a man had never shown her such unconditional kindness before. There’s so much to think about, Donte says, but he enjoys living in these moments.

“I’m not some guy showing up because somebody wants me to be here,” Donte said. “I’m actually here because I want to be here. I think that’s always my whole message to myself going in, because it’s things I actually want to do.”

At his core, Donte is sharing his abundance, but it goes beyond the wealth of an NFL contract. Yes, Donte is a big-name athlete, but it all started in Metairie with his mom and four siblings. He grew up with women who supported him and an older brother who challenged him. He simply wants to be what his loved ones were, and still are, for him: a hero. That’s why his family is “super proud” of what he does off the field.

“That’s just how the women in my family raised me,” Jackson said. “My mom, that’s how she was raised, my grandma raised me… all of us. You’re not gonna meet one bad person with the Jackson last name coming from my side because we all show love, even when we didn’t have it. I think that’s why God continues to bless me and my family. Because even when we didn’t have it, we always stayed genuine people. And we always were kind to people around us, so God’s pouring all blessings over us because the fact that we always stay grounded and we always stay understanding the morals which were were instilled in us as youngins. I live every day like that. I don’t try to be nobody big. I don’t think I’m bigger than nobody. I don’t think I’m too much. I live every day in the moment and try to be a genuine person, be a good human being every day. That’s my message is… it’s nothing fancy. Like I always tell my daughter, I’m like, ‘Just be nice.’ It’s easy to be a bonehead. It’s easy to be mean. But be nice, be kind. I think that’s the morals that were in me as a young kid, so I live everyday like that. My family’s super proud. They’re all super proud.”

Every religious tradition rewards those who do good in the world. In South Asian religions, dharma dictates how humans carry out their lives with righteousness in mind. In Abrahamic faiths, there’s the will and word of God, spread through three religions yet universally understood as abiding by an altruistic code. Religion or not, what matters most in every moral tradition being a kind, decent human being. Funnily enough, that’s exactly why people love Ted Lasso: because the show offers a ray of light in what can seem like a dismal society.

Donte Jackson wears so much more than No. 26 in a Panthers uniform. He wears his heart on his sleeve next to his captain patch, calling on himself and his teammates to be the best version of themselves. He’s living out his dreams — not just of attending LSU and still being the fastest one on the field, but the dreams of his entire family. The mother and grandmother whose sacrifice made him hold space for the experience of women, the older brother who made him want to inspire the next generation of kids.

And then there’s the most important dream: being the best human he can be. Donte does that when he scores pick sixes and brings clothing to kids in need, but every day, he’s the best person possible because of Demi and Denim Jackson.