City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito[bsky.app])
––

PHILADELPHIA — Shareef Jackson remembers as a knee-high six-year-old going with his father to a Caribbean resort where NBA players would vacation. On one occasion, as his dad was talking to someone, Jackson decided to be mischievous and run off.

A few yards later, not watching where he was going, bang! He wound up on the ground. He thought he ran into a tree. It wasn't. It was someone’s massive shin. Shareef exclaimed, “Dad?” when his eyes glanced up, and up, and up, … and Shaquille O’Neal curiously looked down and playfully said, “I’m not your daddy, little guy.”

Marc Jackson ran over to scoop up Shareef, shook Shaq’s hand, and they spoke for a few minutes. Then Marc grabbed little Shareef by the hand and they left, with Shareef peering back at the real-life guy he saw on TV. That’s when it dawned on the Roman Catholic 6-foot-8 senior star who his father was—an NBA player who knew Shaquille O’Neal.

Shareef and his younger brother Sammy, Roman’s sterling 6-foot-8 junior guard, recall the memory fondly with a bellowing laugh.

Being the sons of Philly hoops legend Marc Jackson, the former Roman star who went on to Temple, played seven years in the NBA and is currently the Philadelphia 76ers postgame analyst for NBC Sports Philadelphia, comes with some freight.

Since Shareef and Sammy first touched a basketball, they were “Marc Jackson’s sons,” an early stamp placed on them before they had the chance to cultivate their own identities.

They have now.

They will be the centerpieces for the Cahillites (19-4) when they play Devon Prep Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at the Palestra in the Catholic League semifinals.

They still hear “Marc Jackson’s sons” mumbled along courtside.

Although both Shareef and Sammy handle it well, they do so differently.

Shareef was born in New Jersey, and Marc moved the family to Tampa, Florida, where Sammy and their younger brother, Shayne, a 6-foot-4 14-year-old, were born. They lived in Tampa for about 10 years, when Marc decided to move the family back to his native Philadelphia when Shareef was 11 and Sammy 10.

That’s when Shareef and Sammy began hearing the echoes they were “Marc Jackson’s sons” each time they stepped on a court.

“I liked hearing it when I was around 11, I’ll admit it, when Sammy and I began playing organized basketball up here,” said Shareef, a Lafayette commit. “You’re 11, basketball is supposed to be fun; you're at a fun stage of your life. Then I started hearing it more, ‘Marc Jackson’s son, Marc Jackson’s son.’ I was around 14, about to enter Roman, when it started to get really annoying.

“I didn’t even have a first name. I was ‘Little Jack.’ I had people in my ear, ‘Marc Jackson’s son. Marc Jackson’s son.’ It doesn’t annoy me as much now. I know I have proven I have become my own person. Over time, I started playing better and making a name for myself.”

Shareef is the face of the two-time defending Catholic League champions. His confidence surged the tail end of his sophomore season and bled into the AAU summer between his sophomore and junior years, when he reached the semifinals of Peach Jam.

He’s emerged into a two-time, first-team all-Catholic, and two-time defending Catholic League and District 12 champion. The only accomplishment neither Shareef nor Sammy have not done together is win a PIAA Class 6A state championship, which Shareef won as a freshman in 2022.

This is it for them.

They know it.

This season will probably be the last time they play together.

The brothers are separated by a year, though when you are around them, Shareef is the alpha. He is an engaging, charismatic old soul who acts and thinks much older than his age. He’s 18 going on 45. He circles Sammy like a protective momma hawk. He is unselfish, a behavior learned from his father, openly saying his brother is much better than he is and wants him to be even better.

“I have my Catholic League championships, I have my scholarship, and there are moments, to be honest, that I probably could have gone farther, but I’m okay with that, what's important is that I see a great future for Sammy,” said Shareef, sounding like a doting grandfather in a rocking chair. “I could have done better in the Catholic League. Sammy is really, really good. I still have a goal to reach the NBA. I am going to a great academic school like Lafayette. My father never brought up basketball or the NBA to either of us.

“If we played, great. If we didn't, great. Nothing was ever forced on us. But if we were committed to something, basketball or whatever, work would have to be put into it to be the best we could be. Being Marc Jackson’s son is motivating. Basketball has given me a great education and a great future.”

Sammy is not as demonstrative as Shareef and defers to his older brother. Whereas Shareef would get irritated hearing he’s “Marc Jackson’s son,” Sammy embraced it.

As a 6-foot-8 high school guard who can handle the ball, shoot, defend, and rebound, Sammy is a national talent. He has a high basketball acumen. He can score on all three levels. He loves being in the gym. He loves to facilitate. He will be able to go to any school in the country. He picks his moments when to step in and be dominant. If anything, Sammy still does not realize just how good he is.

It’s something Roman coach Chris McNesby constantly reminds him of.

That is Sammy’s personal conundrum.

Sammy, like Shareef, was raised in a sharing household. He lives in the Roman Catholic basketball culture of selflessness, an ethos McNesby staunchly condones. Yet, when it comes to the Cahillites winning on a higher level, Sammy will need to contradict everything he has been taught at every level when he’s on the court.

Sammy is learning to unwire the way he’s wired.

“I hear it, I hear about being more selfish, but I grew up and was raised to always think about others before you think about yourself,” says Sammy, who has a dry sense of humor and is still growing, possibly reaching 6-9 or 6-10. “It’s the way I am on the court. My job is to make everyone else around me better. The way I see it, I make myself better when I make the team better. I don’t want to take a selfish shot, but there is a good selfishness I know I have to add to my game. That will come. I’m putting my head down and driving to the rim more.”

Sammy already has offers from Marquette, Arizona State, Xavier, Penn State, Miami, Villanova, St. Joe’s and La Salle, among many, many others, though Sammy nor the family have heard from Adam Fisher or anything from Temple, where Marc played under Hall of Famer John Chaney.

Sammy, 17, is getting used to the attention. Shareef pushes both Sammy and Shayne. They sharpened each other's games. Shareef would get the better of Sammy. For the first time a few years ago, that changed.

“It was a big deal to me to finally beat ’Reef,” Sammy said. “I would say our biggest wars would come in the mornings before school here at Roman. They would get nasty, but not out of control. When we were younger, we would pair off, me and ’Reef against Shayne and my dad. Those were wars, too. We had some scratches, and teeth marks from them, because Shayne was a biter (laughs).

“I want the weight. I have no problem with the pressure. I felt the shadow of being ‘Marc Jackson’s son,’ but I was okay with that. Reef went through it because he’s the oldest. Dad always told us not to show emotion, and off the court, ‘be nice.’

“We hear our dad give us advise, and it is kind of funny, we probably could hear coach Chaney through him. I like the criticism I hear courtside. I’m ‘overrated,’ ‘not good enough.’ Great. Okay. Let me hear more. It pushes me. I think pressure is a good thing.”

***

Marc Jackson, a 1993 Roman grad, raised his three sons under the mantra of four simple words: Be nice and thank you. Talking to around 20 coaches, teachers, administrators around the Philadelphia-area basketball community and the Roman Catholic athletic department for this story, it is interesting that not one had a bad word to say about Shareef or Sammy, who have dual citizenship with the United States and Morocco. Not one. A few had opinions about their games, but the words to a person that kept coming back from everyone were the same, “great kids.”

They make syrupy, old-school qualities look cool.

“That comes from the father, that starts at home with Marc,” said McNesby, a 1995 Roman graduate who was a sophomore on Jackson’s Catholic League championship team his senior year, is a two-time Catholic League champion as a player, and four-time Catholic League and three-time PIAA Class 6A state champion as the Cahillites’ coach. “Shareef and Sammy are early for everything. How many teenagers are early for anything?”

They come prepared. After every single practice, they make it a point to shake every coach’s hand and say thank you. Every practice.

"In today’s world, every kid wants to be the center of attention,” McNesby said. "These kids don’t need to be, even though they are. Marc always wanted his kids to play for Roman when he came back from Florida. They are a coach’s dream. They set the tone.

“Everyone loves those kids. Shareef is the most mature person in our program, sometimes coaches included (laughs). He makes sure everything is done the right way. Shareef is going to be a success at anything he does. He sees a world bigger than basketball. Sammy can make money playing basketball, whether it’s the NBA, or in Europe. Sammy is a great teammate, and a great connector. Shareef is our leader. Sammy is evolving into our go-to guy.”

Marc, 50, is still imposing. He’s 6-foot-10 and you can instantly see where Shareef and Sammy get their courteous humility from. Part of that derives from the “Thank you game” they played when they were young going to the market.

If they were given something, they would count each second before one of the boys responded, “Thank you.” However many seconds it took was how many push-ups they did. One time, it took Marc about five minutes to say “Thank you” at a fish market. Shareef and Sammy held it over his head for a while. “He owed us about 300 push-ups for that. By then, he was an old man, we couldn’t really do that to him,” Shareef said, laughing.

Shareef and Sammy have a ton of fun with their father. Shareef gives him the most grief. Marc is meticulous about everything he does, down to his tie when he’s on Sixers postgame. He checks his phone during commercial breaks. Shareef knows that. He’ll sporadically text his father that his tie looks crooked on air, whether it is or not. Marc would come back from commercial in a different tie.

Off the court, they are magnetic and approachable.

When he was their age, Marc admits, he was the polar opposite. He says it took him many years to change his personal narrative. He grew up in the drug-addled streets of North Philly, always much larger than any kid his age. It made him a target. It hit him the hardest one time with his younger brother, Basil, who is 19 years younger than Marc, and who Marc raised like a son.

Basil was a 10-year-old ballboy when Marc played for the Sixers. The two were inseparable. After a game, Marc and Basil were walking down a Philadelphia center city street, when they came across a man walking toward them with his young daughter. The man looked up, saw Marc, and quickly grabbed his daughter and crossed the street.

“I remember that like it was yesterday. I wondered why the man did that, and I could not understand why,” Marc recalled. “I must have whispered out loud to myself, ‘Why did he do that?’ My brother heard me, because he said, ‘because everybody is scared of you.’ I asked why? My brother, who was 10, saw it. I didn’t. He told me I played with this mean look on my face. I never smiled. I played like this mean, maniac on the court; he said, ‘people see that off the court and they’re scared of you.’ It flipped a switch in me. Ever since, I started taking a self-inventory as to who I am and reflected on how I live my life.

“My brother was right. I never smiled. I was never inviting. That changed how I lived. That always resonates with me.”

Marc says he was a brooding loner in his early teens, with no friends. Because of his size, he was the subject of ridicule. On his last day at John Wanamaker Middle School, on 12th and Cecil B Moore Avenue, Marc was walking home and the eighth-grade class jumped him in front of Temple University library. Marc figures it was about 80 kids that beat him half to death.

“That point made me hate people,” said Marc, the controlled rage of many years past still in his voice. “So, when I got to college, everybody was partying. I didn’t do that. I stayed in the gym. I had a great relationship with Temple police officers. They opened up (Temple’s) McGonigle Hall and allowed me to work out until four in the morning, because I didn’t want to be around people, because I couldn’t trust anyone. It’s why I say basketball saved my life. I learned as I got older, basketball was my only friend.”

Marc credits Frank Marchiano, the famous “Frank the Baker of Marchiano's Bakery” on Umbria Street, for taking him in. Marchiano helped Marc break out of that shell, and he learned something.

“Mr. Marchiano saw this traumatized kid and saw I needed help, and he convinced me that the world was not out to get me,” Marc said. “What I noticed is that if I am nice, and I worked hard to be nice, I would be accepted by people. I know, to some, I may look scary. I am a big, black scary man in the best shape of my life, and I learned to change. I wanted to make sure my sons would ‘be nice,’ because for a time in my life, I was not nice.

“My three sons all have different personalities. Shareef is the intellect, who loves being around adults. He’s a mature soul. Women love Sammy. He brings people together. I wanted them to ‘be nice.’ That was very important to me. I went through hell for them. I went through hell, so they would not have to. They have no reason to be an a—e to people. They have no reason to be rude.”

Marc carries many lessons from the legendary Chaney. The iconic coach was demanding, Marc said, but dispensed hardcore love and wisdom. Marc was held accountable for the things he did wrong, and Chaney pointed the ways to correct them. Marc feels many parents today want to be their children's friend—not their parent or father. He knew where the lines were drawn with Chaney, just as Shareef and Sammy know where the line is drawn with their father.

The one Chaney lesson that resonates with Marc that he imparts to Shareef and Sammy is that the world is not your friend, but you can make friends. 

Through basketball, Chaney emphasized, many friends can be made.

Marc has instilled many of Chaney's values into his sons.

It’s why it breaks Marc’s heart that the coach he loved for the school he once played for, Temple, showed no interest in Shareef, and now Sammy, one of the best young players in the city.

“Shareef and Sammy are the sons of a Temple alum who lives down the street from the school, who went to the school, and does their ESPN home game broadcasts, who speaks to Temple students, and no one reached out to one of my sons?” Marc said. “I mentioned this to the new athletic director (Arthur Johnson). He couldn’t believe it.

“Shareef’s stock is not as high as Sammy’s, but Villanova reached out, the best team in the city, and Temple didn’t reach out? Villanova reached out to Sammy, and Temple never called me once about my sons. Sammy is getting offers from every school in the country. It makes no sense.

“I am very, very proud of my sons. I know how good they are. I’m hard on them, but very proud of them.”

Marc will continue to sit in the back, in a remote area of the gym, where he can’t hear nearby fans being critical of the kids playing, whether they are his kids or not. He has no tolerance for it.

As the season winds down, the Jacksons are bracing themselves for what is ahead. When people compliment Marc on how Shareef and Sammy carry themselves, which he hears often, he reluctantly accepts it. He has corrected a path. Marc would not let Shareef and Sammy touch the life he had.

It's interesting today that everyone around Marc Jackson doesn't see the angry kid he once was. 

But he won't take credit for the father he is.

Would that father and daughter that walked toward Marc some 30 years ago cross the street if they saw the smiling Shareef or Sammy walking in their direction today?

Probably not.

That's what Marc has done.      

“My sons are the center of my life,” Marc admits. “I don’t look at it that I did good job raising them. That's because there is more ahead; more needs to be done. This has been a great time watching them play together these last few years. Win or lose, the last time they’re together on a court for Roman will be tough.”

Marc imagines he and his two sons will hug, whether it is at center court of the Palestra floor Wednesday night or in late March in Hershey in the state championship.

“I haven’t won a state title yet, and it would be a great way to go out, especially for ’Reef his senior year,” Sammy said. “It would mean a lot to our dad, too, all three of us together.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here [bsky.app].