Robert "Scoop" Jackson (born November 23, 1963) is an American sports journalist, author and cultural critic currently contributing to ESPN.com. Early life Jackson was born and raised in Chicago, where he still lives with his wife Tracy and two sons; he was born the day after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and Jackson was named after his uncle joked, "This boy scooped Kennedy. Put him on the cover of the paper." He attended Luther High School South in Chicago, was educated at Xavier University (LA) and received a Master in Arts degree from Howard University where he made the National Dean's List in 1990-91 before becoming a journalist. His father was a writer for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Career Jackson began his career as a freelance writer. Appearing in various publications has including USA Today, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Source The Final Call. Authoring two books, The Last Black Mecca and The Darkside. He has written for basketball and hip hop magazines for at least 25 years, executive editing SLAM Magazine, XXL, and edited Hoop and Inside Stuff. He has also written for and Vibe and is a frequent guest on radio and TV sports talk shows, and is regularly featured on ESPN's Sports Century series. Jackson's first article for SLAM appeared in the January 1995 issue titled "The Large Professor", a story about Shaquille O'Neal. At one time, Jackson pushed SLAM publisher Dennis Page to put Allen Iverson on the cover of the magazine while Iverson was still playing basketball at Georgetown University, threatening to resign if this did not happen. In addition to his regular feature articles for SLAM, in 2004 Jackson began to write a back-page column named "Game Point", in which he aired opinions on various basketball-related topics. Jackson continued to write for SLAM until the July 2005 issue. In 2000 Jackson was commissioned by Nike to pen the first book about the company's contribution to basketball and sneaker culture with Sole Provider: 30 Years of Nike Basketball. Where Jackson stayed on with the company for five years a content and copy writer before joining ESPN. He began writing for ESPN.com on March 8, 2005 with his first article being a statement of his sporting views entitled "Scoop's Manifesto". In 2006, upon his one-year anniversary with ESPN, he had a follow up article stating what he learned on the job. The