In June 2005, Georgia Tech basketball star Jarrett Jack waffled on his future, waiting until the deadline to make a decision on entering the NBA Draft after his junior season. Ever dutiful, Jack asked his mother Louise what she thought he should do.
“I said, ‘Well, you’re a junior and you’re a very good student,’” Louise Jack said last week. “’The only thing I would like for you to consider and promise is you’ll come back and finish school because you’re too far gone in that direction.’”
Jack complied and entered the draft. Nine years later, he made good on his word. Dec. 13 at McCamish Pavilion, in the same (albeit renovated) arena where he became a two-time All-ACC selection and the glue of the Yellow Jackets’ 2004 Final Four team, Jack received his management degree. Even as he navigated an NBA career in which he has earned more than $31 million, according to basketball-reference.com, Jack returned to Tech seven of nine offseasons to chip away at the final 33 of the 122 credit hours necessary to graduate. When motivation waned as he struggled through chemistry, math and upper-level management courses, his oath (and those he gave it to) kept him going.
“I’m in a situation where I’m financially stable, living out my dream,” he said. “You kind of feel content with it, but my mom and dad, they were the ones who kind of stayed on me and made me see the greater good.”
The degree meant enough to him that Jack, in his 10th NBA season and now a backup with the Brooklyn Nets, took a private jet following a home game the night before graduation, then took another flight from Atlanta to Charlotte, N.C., after the ceremonies for another game that night. Several family members, former teammates and former Tech coach Paul Hewitt were on hand to help Jack celebrate.
“I’ve been working very, very hard to finish up my academic requirements and it’s something I felt like I wanted to be part of,” Jack said.
Jack’s commitment to education traces back to a northern Louisiana farm. It’s where Jack’s mother Louise grew up, the daughter of sharecroppers. As one of eight children, Louise Jack fed pigs and cows, picked cotton, churned butter and had the value of a college education drilled into her by her parents, John and Luella Jackson.
“He and my mother sacrificed so much so we could get a chance to go to college,” Louise Jack said.
Louise was one of six Jackson children to earn college degrees. With an accounting degree, she worked for 30 years as a finance officer with the CIA. Jack’s father, Carlton, who played football for Grambling coaching legend Eddie Robinson, worked as an office building manager.
Growing up in Fort Washington, Md., Jack and his brother Justin had to keep their grades up in order to take part in extracurricular activities. Justin graduated from Morehouse and now manages his brother’s career. To complete his degree, Jack typically took one or two classes each summer.
“People kind of looked at me sideways a little bit, trying to figure out one, it was me and two, wondering what the (heck) I was doing there,” Jack said.
Jack’s approach to his studies caught the attention of at least one faculty member. When Jim Lemoine went over his class roster before the start of his servant leadership class last summer, he noticed Jack’s name and wasn’t sure what to make of it, not understanding why an NBA veteran would be in his class.
“But I walked in, and there he is,” Lemoine said. “I’m not really sure if most of the people in the room knew who he was, but I knew.”
Lemoine’s next concern was how a multimillionaire professional athlete would comport himself in a class where he had little obvious motivation. His worries were allayed when Jack stayed after the first class to explain his situation and get to know his professor.
Jack turned in assignments, took part in group projects and impressed Lemoine with his writing ability. Over the semester, classmates all became aware of who the old guy was, as Jack shared his experiences with leadership, telling stories about NBA coaches.
“He shared his stories, but the class never became about him,” Lemoine said. “He didn’t make a big deal about it.”
Jack was in Lemoine’s class when he learned he had been traded from Cleveland to Brooklyn, briefly excusing himself for a phone call.
After returning, “he told us and we were excited about that, but I tell you what,” Lemoine said, “five minutes after that, he was doing a group project with the other four members of the group building a little marshmallow tower. … There’s not a lot of people that would do that.”
Jack is one of a several former Tech athletes who have returned to complete their degree work in recent years, part of the athletic department’s degree completion program. Former football players T.J. Barnes, Jamal Cox, P.J. Daniels, Gary Guyton, Joshua Nesbitt and Chris Reis have all graduated in the past two years, as have former basketball players Zach Peacock and B.J. Elder.
The night of his graduation, Jack scored 14 points and tied his season high with five assists in the Nets’ win over Charlotte. You might call it an effective application of servant leadership.
Said Jarrett Jack, Class of 2014, “It was definitely well worth it.”
