DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 1997          TAG: 9711190794

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Molinaro 

                                            LENGTH:   64 lines

EX-MAURY HOOP STAR SENDS MESSAGE TO MICHIGAN

At Maury High School, where he became an All-Tidewater basketball player, Shaun Jackson was recognized as much for his hair as for his rebounding.

``It was wild,'' he says today of a do that might best have been described as early Don King.

Compared with the close-crop or cue-ball look preferred by most players, Jackson's hair appeared to be styled with static electricity.

``It would be the same today,'' Jackson said Tuesday, two seasons removed from Maury. ``Only now I keep it hidden. I wear it in cornrows.''

Today, his cornrows are in Kalamazoo. After two years at a junior college, Jackson starts at forward for Western Michigan University, a school of 26,000 students. Saturday night, in his first Division I game, he played 34 minutes as the Broncos upset the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor.

There was nothing static about Jackson's introduction to big-time basketball. His team-high eight rebounds, along with five points and five steals, contributed to the 68-63 victory. It was the first time in 27 years Michigan lost a home opener.

``If they didn't have Michigan on their jerseys, they would have been just another team to us,'' Jackson said.

It was not just another victory in Kalamazoo, where the students let down their hair and celebrated. Picture UNC Charlotte knocking off North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

``They say if you want to be the best,'' Jackson said, ``you gotta play against the best.''

Not to mention the biggest. Jackson, 6-feet-7, 210 pounds, alternately guarded Michigan's Maceo Baston, Jerod Ward and Robert Traylor. All have an inch or two on him. Of the three, Traylor, who weighs in at about 320, presented the most formidable challenge for the slender Jackson.

``What Shaun did,'' said WMU assistant Chris Davis, ``can't be measured by the box score. He guarded three really talented players.''

The least surprised by his initial success is Jackson himself. ``When I graduated from high school,'' he said, ``I knew I was going to play D-one. It was just a matter of time.''

Time spent in Parsons, Kansas, population 12,000. ``Slow,'' is how Jackson describes the hard time spent at Labette Junior College.

Upon leaving Maury, he eschewed opportunities to attend school closer to his family's home in the Norfolk neighborhood of Colonial Place. Instead, heeding the advice of his mother, Gail Jackson (``I owe everything to my mother.''), Shaun took his cornrows to corn country.

Slow is what he needed. That, and some distance between his old life and the new.

``I had to get away,'' he said, ``so I could concentrate on my school work and get my priorities in order. I got friends in Norfolk. I wouldn't have put 100 percent into school.''

Now he's majoring in criminal justice with a minor in sociology.

``Like they say,'' he remarked, ``it ain't worth it if you don't work for it.''

At Maury, Jackson worked the backboards. Since then, his game has evolved. He's expanded his scoring range.

This season will see Jackson develop his jump shot against the likes of Eastern Michigan and Toledo. For the time being, though, his stellar debut in D-one is defined by the hair-raising victory over Michigan.

``We don't win the game if he's not on the floor,'' said Davis.

Which is another way of saying that Western Michigan is ec-static over Shaun Jackson's arrival.

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