Former Colts head coach Chuck Pagano and current General Manager Chris Ballard attended Edwin Jackson’s celebration of life service in Atlanta on Monday and shared fond memories of the linebacker.
“I’ll never forget the first time he came to West 56th, and he sat down and I said, ‘I just have to know where you got the name Poundcake. Can you explain to me, please?’” Pagano said, via the team’s official Twitter account. “I know that Arizona picked up Edwin in 2015 as a free agent, and I know that circumstances had it where I think he might’ve missed his first flight and was a little bit tardy. He was never tardy with the Colts. I can tell you that. So I guess his mom made some poundcake to take back with him, just to get in the good graces of coach [Bruce] Arians and the rest of the Cardinals organization. It must have been some really good poundcake. From the day that Edwin entered West 56th, that smile, that amazing smile -- God, he could light up the room -- and the energy and passion and fire and juice and love and determination and drive and dedication seeped out of his young man.”
Ballard also talked about Jackson’s smile and friendliness.
“About my third day on the job, there’s a young man who comes up with his bright smile and introduces himself,” Ballard said. “And everyday he introduced himself to make sure I knew who he was. One day, he came down to my office, and we had a long talk about where we’re going, what are we doing? You know football’s not going to last forever. It doesn’t. It ends for all, whether it’s in junior high, high school, college or the NFL, and I started to ask Edwin, ‘Where are we going? What’s our next step?’ And he got a big, bright smile on his face, and we talked about school, and how we were going to finish, but he thought he had more to do in the league. He had a platform to serve others, and he was tremendous in that way. He was one of our active guys when it came to serving our community.”