HIS MOM IS IN PRISON, BUT FAU'S JERVONTE JACKSON ALWAYS KNEW HE COULD HAVE
A BETTER LIFE

DETROIT - For Avonda Dowling, Christmas will not come until Friday afternoon.

That's when the mother of Florida Atlantic's Jervonte Jackson will walk
from her 10-by-10 cell to the "sports room," where the 27-inch television
always is tuned to ESPN.

There, Dowling will gather with about 25 inmates and cheer on the Owls.
But the most special moments will be when her son, a first-team All-Sun
Belt defensive tackle, flashes across the screen.

"It's so hard. It's very emotional," Dowling said. "At the same time I am
so excited."

Dowling's home for the past five years has been the federal correctional
institution in Dublin, Calif., about 20 miles southeast of Oakland. She is
serving a 20-year sentence for conspiracy to distribute less than 500
grams of cocaine.

There, she often thinks of her two children, Jervonte, 21, and Vonshari
Hoardes, 19, and hopes both can continue on a track far different from the
one she took. Dowling, 45, was arrested 12 times between 1982 and 1998 on
charges ranging from aggravated assault to grand larceny to possession of
weapons and drugs.

She was said by police to have been the leader of one of the most violent
drug gangs in Miami, and accused of trafficking crack and powder cocaine,
marijuana and heroin in Overtown and Liberty City.

But as desperate and dangerous the existence of a drug dealer can be, she
managed to shield her children from the street life while raising them to
not follow her example.

"Even though she did what she did, she never gave up on me and my sister,"
Jackson said. "She never stopped telling us to do our homework. She never
gave us anything. Everything had to be earned. Bad grades? You're getting
nothing."

Jackson has been a role model since entering FAU in 2004. He'll start for
the 48th time in his career Friday in the Motor City Bowl against Central
Michigan. He is on target to receive his degree in health administration
in the spring. Jackson, a 6-foot-5, 300-pounder, was second team All-Sun
Belt as a sophomore and junior before jumping to first team this season.

"He knew right from wrong although his family was on the opposite side of
the track he knew not to cross that track," FAU defensive tackles coach
Eli Rasheed said.

Taking a different track

Jervonte Jackson still remembers that day sitting in U.S. District Court,
nervously awaiting his mom's sentencing.

"I was sitting in the back," he said. "They found her guilty I was like,
'Man.' I'm praying and then they said '240 months.' I'm doing the math and
I said to myself, 'That's 20 years! Whoa!'

"It hit me and my heart skipped a beat and I was like, 'My mom is going
away for 20 years?' "

Beatrice Reed, Jackson's grandmother, often cared for Dowling's two
children as her daughter dealt with her legal problems. Before her 20-year
sentence Dowling served time in state prison on cocaine and
handgun charges while Jackson was in elementary school. One day, when
Jackson was about 10 years old, he proved to his grandmother that he knew
plenty about his mother's lifestyle.

"He said to me he would never sell drugs, he would never take drugs," Reed
said. "He was never a bad kid. He could have gone down the wrong path but
he went down the right path."

Kids talk. Rumors are spread. Especially in elementary school where
Jackson heard classmates talking about his mother. And Jackson knew most
mothers did not hang out on the streets.

So Jackson confronted her and she confessed.

Dowling told her son that anything she did was with her children's needs
at heart. Still, he begged and pleaded.

"I was confused," Jackson said. " 'You want me to do this and you're doing
that? You don't think what you do is going to reflect on me?' She told me
what she was doing was wrong and I understood it at a young age. I stayed
away from that."

And he continued to support her and show her an unconditional love.

"She means the world to him," said linebacker Frantz Joseph, Jackson's
roommate the past three years. "He hasn't had a father around since he was
a child. She's been the queen of everything."

Dowling still insists she had no choice. Life was hard. Money was scarce
and she had three mouths to feed. Help wasn't coming, certainly not from
Jackson's father, who also has been incarcerated and, according to
Dowling, left when she was two months pregnant with Jervonte.

"I am sitting now behind these bars and realizing the biggest mistake I
made in my life," said Dowling, during a 40-minute phone conversation from
her case manager's office.

"I continued to do wrong and I knew it was wrong but I had to do it. It
was so hard for me. Growing up in Overtown, it's not easy. Very few kids
come out of Overtown with an education. A person can't really relate
unless they live in that environment, an environment that is dangerous,
people take advantage of you. I was taken advantage of."

Mother's case 'a travesty'

Jervonte Jackson insists his mother had turned her life around before her
trial in 2003.

"I know for a fact she had stopped," he said.

But prosecutors painted a different picture of a woman they said was the
leader of "Vonda's Gang" and who defense attorneys said sponsored Easter
Egg hunts in her working-poor neighborhood with the help of local police.

Just before the trial started, Justice Department officials were
considering adding charges that would have made Dowling eligible for the
death penalty but never followed through. Prosecutors said
Dowling benefited from the murders of rivals and they presented several
witnesses who said Dowling never left the business.

"There were a lot of false allegations on me," she said. "I stood up and I
admitted to my wrongdoings. I admitted to being a drug dealer, which I was."

After the sentencing defense attorney William Tunkey said the case was a
travesty.

"Today was one of the saddest days in my (33-year) career practicing law,"
he told the Miami Herald at the time. "She's a very good person who has
turned her life around since 1995. To punish her for 20 years for conduct
that ended in '95 is not humane."

Dowling was eventually sent to California because the government's case
included so many witnesses who testified against her that she was not
allowed to serve her time at any prison that housed any of the witnesses.

"People testified against me, people I never saw in my life," she said.

Dowling shares her cell with two inmates. In the cramped quarters she has
carved out room on her wall for pictures of her children and newspaper
articles of her son.

She writes them both once a week and calls Jackson before every game.

"She'll cry because she can't be here with me," Jackson said.

That call this year will come today.

On Christmas.

"It's a tough day for me," Jackson said.

Freedom is motivation

Dowling's days consist of a quilting class, a computer class, walking the
track and treadmill, playing volleyball and working in the yard on weekends.

She is prepared to serve her entire sentence after having three appeals
denied. Dowling is hopeful the Federal Parole Board, which was abolished
in 1987, will be reinstated, which could lead to shaving time off
her sentence.

Meanwhile, Jackson is prepared for the next step in his life. The NFL
could be an option, especially for a player of his size that runs a
sub-5.0 40-yard dash. His half-brother, Jamaal Jackson, is the
starting center for the Philadelphia Eagles.

But whether it's the NFL or a career in health administration, Jackson's
motivation is one day seeing his mom a free woman.

"The case against her went so wrong," he said. "So much false information
.. accusations against my mom, statements and people testifying against
her she had never met. Never saw.

"That motivates me. I'm trying to get her a better lawyer. That's exactly
what keeps me driving and keeps me going."