The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson

By the author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive sports biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson.

“A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." —Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America’s most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth.

Then, almost overnight, he was gone.

He was Bo Jackson.

Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures in this in-depth biography as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University’s transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous “Bo Knows” Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or … maybe.)

Bo Jackson isn’t Jim Thorpe.

He’s not Deion Sanders, either.

 No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan.

 The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only “master storyteller” (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.

This meticulously researched sports biography separates the man from the myth with:

• A True Multi-Sport Legend: Go inside the moments that made Bo the first athlete to be an All-Star in two major American sports, the NFL and Major League Baseball.
• Meticulously Researched: Built from nearly 750 exclusive interviews, this definitive biography goes beyond the headlines to find the real story.
• The ‘Bo Knows’ Era: Relive the period when Jackson surpassed Michael Jordan as a cultural icon, becoming the face of a legendary Nike advertising campaign.
• Myth vs. Man: Pearlman answers the questions that created the legend. Did Bo really run a 4.13 40-yard dash? Did he truly walk on walls? The answers are here.