Get The Hell Out of Your Life
Real stories, real struggles, real hope. Be inspired by powerful testimonies that validate God's forgiveness, redemption, and plan for your life!
Get The Hell Out of Your Life
Jackie's Story: From Super Bowl to Homeless. A Photojournalist's Divine Appointment
A chance assignment to photograph a homeless camp became a 35-year redemption story when photojournalist Ted Jackson stumbled upon Jackie Wallace sleeping under a New Orleans bridge. What seemed like an ordinary July day in 1990 transformed into an extraordinary journey when the homeless man uttered six words that would change both their lives forever: "You ought to do a story about me."
Behind those words lay an astonishing truth—this disheveled man had played in three Super Bowls, setting NFL records during his career with the Vikings, Colts, and Rams. Ted's subsequent newspaper story launched Jackie from the streets into rehabilitation, marriage, and twelve years of sobriety before addiction's cruel grip pulled him back under. Their paths would cross again years later, leading to renewed friendship and ultimately culminating in their co-authored book published by HarperCollins: "You Ought to Do a Story About Me: Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Endless Quest for Redemption."
Ted frames their unexpected connection as a divine appointment, explaining how God positions us precisely where we need to be—if only we have eyes to notice the opportunities and courage to step through open doors. Jackie's journey shatters misconceptions about addiction, revealing how even a "squeaky clean" Christian athlete fell into crack cocaine's grasp following his mother's death. Through their story, we witness addiction's devastating power alongside the equally powerful forces of friendship, faith, and persistent grace.
The relationship between these unlikely friends offers profound insights into redemption as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. As Ted shares their experience navigating the complexities of supporting someone in recovery—even dividing book proceeds in ways that wouldn't enable relapse—listeners gain practical wisdom about walking alongside those struggling with addiction. Their story reminds us that God's work often unfolds in the most unexpected encounters, through ordinary people willing to see others through His eyes.
Visit tedjacksonphoto.com to explore Ted's photography portfolio and find links to their powerful book that continues changing lives across the country.
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Well, I am a retired, semi-retired photojournalist with the Times-Picayune and live in Covington. I grew up in Macomb, mississippi, was raised in the Church of Christ. I am now a member of the First Baptist Covington here in Covington. Just love telling my stories that I collected over the decades with my work at the newspaper. Go ahead, tell us Okay with my work at the newspaper. Go ahead, tell us Okay. Well, I will start in my childhood and just bring it forward very quickly. Growing up in church, I often heard the stories about the parables of the talent. When my mom told me how talented I was with my art skills, I took that to heart and I always thought that I needed to grow up with the responsibility to use my talents for God. And so as the years progressed, I found myself as a staff photographer with the Times-Picayune and I always looked for opportunities to do stories of people who had no voice, which of course that always led to poverty and drug abuse and those kinds of things and social issues. So one day in 1990, it was a very hot day, july 3rd 1990, my editor walked into the darkroom and mentioned a homeless camp that he had seen under Carrollton Overpass. He said you know, you're not doing anything, just go check it out. Nothing expected, no pressure of any kind of productivity, just go check it out. And so I headed down there. And the camp he was referring to was unique in that it had living kind of a living room, look to it, couches and chairs, kind of arranged in a semicircle. But when I got there it was torn up upside down, ripped apart, and there was no one there, although it had only been two or three days since my editor had seen it. So I headed back to my car. In about, I'd say about 100 yards or maybe a little bit more, I almost literally stumbled over a man sleeping on a rusty box spring and I thought his camp was very unique, looking very organized, you know, socks tucked in, shoes lined up straight. He even had a newspaper folded neatly at his elbow. So I kind of climbed up on the bridge girders above him and shot a picture, and I had no intentions of using that for anything, it just was a record of a unique camp that I saw.
Speaker 1:And I climbed back down and woke him up because I wanted to know what had happened to the campsite. He told me that he thought that teenagers had been shooting their guns into the camp when they drove by on the interstate and ran the guys off. And then he asked me why. I wanted to know. Told him I was with the newspaper and he said that got his attention. Of course.
Speaker 1:I had two cameras slung around my shoulders and that's when he said that you ought to do a story about me. And I said why would I want to do that? Kind of chuckled because I hear that a lot as a newspaper photographer. And he said because I've played in three Super Bowls and I didn't believe it. I asked him his name. I thought he was just kind of high on crack and delirious or whatever it might be and delusional. Turned out he was telling the truth and my editors at the newspaper confirmed who he was.
Speaker 1:Jackie Wallace played at St Aug High School as quarterback quarterback, became an All-American cornerback punt returner at Arizona and was drafted by the Vikings, played with the Colts and finished his career with the Rams and at the Rams he set a punt return record that still stands in the NFL today. So to fast forward, a story appeared in the newspaper that next Friday he was swept up off the streets and was soon in a rehab in Baltimore, where he was clean and sober, came back and talked his or charmed his way into the newsroom to invite me to his wedding.
Speaker 1:He had met a woman and they were were getting married and they were buying a house and it was a glorious, happy ever after. So that's kind of the nutshell of it. But digging just a bit deeper, jackie and Debra lived happily ever after for 12 years and then they had a fight and Jackie disappeared again. That was kind of like the culmination of a dream assignment that turned out incredibly well an incredible well-designed display for a Hallmark movie but then crashed and burned and so I spent 12 years after that. It seems like Jackie's life runs in segments of 12 years. Years after that it seems like Jackie's life runs in segments of 12 years. But 12 years after that I was so disturbed by the memory of that story and, not knowing that, I made a vow to God.
Speaker 1:Actually, I was laying in a bed in a homeless camp doing a story on the New Orleans Mission when I decided it was time to find Jackie again, and so it was that next search, just a few years ago actually, that it took quite a while, many months, but I found him in a rehab kind of a halfway house, and he had been clean this time for three years. We did an update story. Jackie was thrilled to see me, as I was to see him, and after that together we wrote a book published by HarperCollins in 2020. And it's done quite well, has made some amazing inroads in telling Jackie's story and the story of redemption. It up on the Today Show with Al Roker in an interview to tell the story himself. So it's been quite a journey over the last 33, 35 years or so and Jackie and I are now wonderful friends who keep up and praise God for every memory of meeting that day under the bridge.
Speaker 2:That's an incredible story. Remember the name from football. I've heard it. I used to live in Iowa so we followed the Vikings growing up. When you look back over that whole story, in your initial assignment your editor said go on down and check out that homeless camp. God was in all that. Divine appointments, I always call them. God likes to put us in the right place at the right time, even though we may not know it's the right time and the right place. Have you found that out in your job?
Speaker 1:I absolutely have. I call it the doors of opportunity that open around us all the time. And our job, I guess, in a way as Christians and followers and disciples, is to notice them. And once we notice them, we have to have the courage to step through them, regardless of where it might lead us, because if we determine that they're open by God, then that's our duty. I think that we're afraid to do that. So many times, I know I've been afraid many times, you know, of what might come next, but the blessings that come from them is just amazing.
Speaker 1:And when Jackie and I were, we did extensive interviews to write the book, of course. And one day I was, we were sitting at the lakefront on Lake Pontchartrain, one day, sitting in my car, jackie telling me you know like three hours worth of stories you know of his life. And I said you know, jackie, I feel like God gave me the talent and the camera skills to put me in a place where I would meet you that day. Amen, I feel like that was the purpose. And his eyes lit up and he laughed out loud and he said I've always thought the same thing about playing football. He said all of that was just to meet you that day so that our lives could culminate in what we're doing right now. That's always been that wink and a nudge we've had with each other ever since that day.
Speaker 1:Before I forget what is the title of the book the title of the book is what Jackie said to me under the bridge that day you ought to do a story about me. And it has a subtitle too. That is Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship and the Endless Quest for Redemption.
Speaker 2:Is that what happened with Jackie? Did he have an addiction?
Speaker 1:He was addicted to crack cocaine. That's what put him under the bridge. The bridge and most people initially assume as probably I did too that the spotlight and the glamour of the glory of NFL and the money drove him to, you know, abusing drugs and things like that. But that wasn't the case with Jackie. He was one of these squeaky clean kids who had a great family, got a great education at St Aug and was always nurtured to be the upstanding Christian young man, and he excelled at that. He was just charitable. He once told me that even when the classmate's pencil fell on the floor, he hesitated to pick it up because it would look like he was trying to steal it. He was that kind of a goody guy. But when his mother died after he had left football and he felt so much guilt over that and sorrow, he tells me that he felt like he had lost the one person in the world who loved him unconditionally, and the night of her funeral he went and tried crack cocaine for the first time.
Speaker 2:Wow, what an amazing story as a staff photographer you're semi-retired, right with Times-Picayune.
Speaker 1:Yes, I actually retired from I took the official retirement from the Times-Picayune so that I could have the time to write this book, and so it's been quite a blessing. And once I finished with the book, then I went back to freelancing, which I really I thoroughly enjoy picking up jobs when they come in and continuing my journalism.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people will ask me well, how many people listen to your radio show or how many people listen to your podcast? And I tell them I don't know and I really don't care, because I'm speaking to the one person that needs to hear this. You met that one person, one person out of the hundreds and thousands you probably saw over your lifetime as a photographer. That one person, you made a difference in his life. That is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we've all heard the little story about the guy walking along the beach and throwing starfish back into the water and someone saying you can't possibly make a difference, look at the starfish on this beach. And he picked up the next one and threw it in. He said I made a difference to that one and that has always been the approach, especially with Jackie. But in my understanding of how we affect change is one person at a time, and our church a couple of years ago now handed out little memory bracelets that you wear to remind you of something noble and the campaign at that time was who's your One? I really love reaching that that. We can't reach everyone, but we can all reach one and Jackie has always been very, very high on my list of the one.
Speaker 2:You know, yesterday after I talked with you and I knew I was going to call you today and interview you, I always think, wonder what the title of this show would be. And the first thing that came in my head I don't know if it was me or the Holy Spirit or both or whatever was the Good Samaritan you ever think of that. The story of the Good Samaritan and your story kind of parallel each other.
Speaker 1:I do, and you know it can go a lot of different ways. You know Jackie was a prodigal son and Jackie continues, you know, through his life. The problem with addiction I find especially substance abuse like this is that when someone fails, even when they're just being weak-willed or whatever it is, and they fail and then they find themselves in the pig trough and eating the scraps, they come to their senses and they want to come home. A lot of times family and friends, they tend to reject them and repel them away because they have made such an egregious error in their life. And I think of that a lot. You know, good Samaritan, or whatever you might call it. I just feel like you know God calls us to reach out to people like this and to help them along the way. Because something I learned in writing the book is that I asked a chaplain one day to explain to me what it was like to be addicted and to recover from crack cocaine and I said I need you to describe that to me because I've never been addicted to anything. And he looked at me and he said oh really. He said check your closets. We're all addicted to something.
Speaker 1:I know people will recoil from that idea if they've never thought about it too deeply. But you think about something that you just mentally, physically, you can't live without. You have to have something specific in your life. Some people instantly think of chocolate, cake or Cokes or their smartphone or something like that. But when I dug deep in my own heart, I thought, well, the one thing that I cannot live without would have to be my grandchildren. I love them to death. I cannot imagine going without hugs and visits.
Speaker 1:And that's what the chaplain was trying to get at with me. He was saying that the way Jackie's brain looks at crack cocaine says, as evil and nasty as that sounds, that's the way his brain sees that. And so when, when you think of Jackie Wallace, a crack addict who was pulled out from under the bridge and was given a second chance, he said he had to wake up every morning not to see his grandchildren because he knew now that it was bad and very destructive for him, health and family and everything else about his life. And Jackie Wallace survived that for 12 years. Wow, and yet to think of that.
Speaker 1:And when he fails, when he messed up again, oh God, I'm not going to kick him out, I'm going to do what I can to help him get back on that path again and to get back where he needs to be. So I think of it every time that I fail myself or when I fail God in something that I'm really trying to achieve. You don't do it by willpower. You just don't do it by willpower. You do it by the grace of God and His strength. That helps us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if we really think, ted, sometimes just dwell on the fact that, how God picked us up under a bridge and dusted us off and took all the filth and trash out of our life and gave us a whole new we became a new creation in Him. To not want to give it back, or what do they say, pay it forward, to go out there and not look at people as homeless but look at them through the eyes of Jesus, it's a different reaction. Like I will give people on the street corner some money and people say that's dumb, ron, why do you do that? You don't know what they're going to do with the money. I said, well, I hope they do something wise with it, but I'm not going to do. It's just the right thing to do. I feel Jesus would do that. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do have a different approach on that, but I do feel like we can't ignore them. I feel like and I'll give you my personal example but I love donating to charities that I have researched and find that are very helpful in securing futures and being able to sort out these kinds of addiction issues in people's lives. My personal example of this was when I got a book deal with HarperCollins to write the book, with HarperCollins to write the book, and in thinking about that they were going to give me an advance, a nice little advance that I was going to be able to live on while I wrote the book. And just thinking about it, well, jackie Wallace is going to have to sit with me in a car or sit with me in a room or go to the library and spend countless, countless hours. And this is Jackie's story as much as it is mine. It's kind of both of our stories. And I said Jackie deserves some of this money too, and so we decided that the money would be split between the two of us. That was a decision made between me and my agent.
Speaker 1:But then came the dilemma on how do you give money to a crack addict, because he's always going to be a crack addict, but he did it in his hands. What will he do? And I just cringed at the idea that Jackie would be using some of this money to hand over to a crack dealer. And I talked to all kinds of folks on how to handle this and we thought about trust funds.
Speaker 1:I talked to Jackie. He said, oh, absolutely don't give me money. He said money is my leash. When I don't have money, that's the leash that keeps me off drugs. And so we developed these strategies and we were able to give the money out in increments at moments and in times that we knew exactly where it was going to go and that it was going to good purposes and good needs. The money that we were able to give in would just free up the other money that you didn't have to pay for rent. So it was very complicated, yeah, but Jackie agreed. You know that that's the way we should handle it and that's what we did well, and you just were speaking to me.
Speaker 2:In that it's maybe a different way that I approach things too, because I know a lot of people here on the gulf coast that do work with the homeless and give them resources. I I appreciate that bit of wisdom. I want to ask you to do something for me before we go. There's people out there right now listening that don't think, well, I could never do that. Or boy, that never happens to me. Or you know they would like to help someone, but they just don't think, well, I could never do that. Or well, that never happens to me. Or you know they would like to help someone, but they just don't have the courage or they're afraid to. You can speak to that person now. What would you tell them?
Speaker 1:Well, I think we all have different skill sets. You know, my career led me to some very unsavory places, you know, day to day, or week to week, and I developed some skills of how to deal with folks in those situations. But, like we said earlier, you know, everybody has a skill, everybody has a talent. We know that from scripture and we also know that we have opportunities that are placed before us. I think the real hurdle is getting over the fear of where it might lead us in our giving or our resources or our time or our heart. Getting over that is, I think, the real challenge.
Speaker 1:It kind of makes us laugh now is that when we look back on our lives, we have opened ourselves up to scary opportunities at times and God has been faithful to take care of us, provide for us and lead us into ever more amazing adventures and opportunities and opportunities for service. But you know what, ron? We worry about what he's going to be able to do next week. He's taking care of us, but maybe he's not up to next week. God is faithful. He may not lead us where we want to go, but he's going to lead us where we need to be.
Speaker 2:Do you have a website? Can we check out some of the amazing photography you've done over your years at the times?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, tedjacksonphotocom tedjacksonphotocom and there are links to the book where you can find the book. There's all photos, that a portfolio of photos. There's stories that I've written and been a part of as a series. My specialty at the time, spick and Young, was working on long-term projects, and so there's a lot of those that are linked there. It's a good place to go to kind of see everything, and I built it to inspire people. I really love people being able to read these stories and see the presence of God in the people that I've written and talked about and photographed over the years.
Speaker 2:Tedjacksonphotocom.
Speaker 1:Yes, one more time, the title of that book you ought to do a story about me and it's available anywhere you can get Amazon. A lot of bookstores have it. It's in paperback and hardback. It takes you to a lot of different places homelessness, crack addiction inside the NFL, inside drug dealings, inside CTE, inside relationships and love and friendship.
Speaker 2:I always ask all my guests is the title of the show is Get the Hell Out of your Life. So, ted, how do you get the hell out of your life?
Speaker 1:One thing is priority to me prayer, prayer is the major thing. We're such humans are so forgetful. We have an incredible day, one day and an amazing opportunity and, like a week later, you think back on that day and we often say, well, yeah, that was a good day. But if you're praying and you're devoting yourself, setting aside time every day, focus on the blessings of God and to seek his counsel and to pray for his presence that's key. Amen, his presence in your life Then that rains your day in a very powerful way and starts you off right. And the next day you do it again. And the amazing thing for me, I got to tell you is keeping a prayer journal where I write these thoughts and feelings and opportunities and responses from God. And you look back over that over the weeks or months or even years, and you're absolutely it takes care of your memory problem. You see the blessings, you see the growth, you see the changes and you see the power of God's presence in your life.