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Record punctuates illustrious career

by Mark Coons, Staff Writer
Article published 7/18/2007, The Times-Tribune

Despite playing for his fifth team in 11 seasons, Donnie Jackson-Bey keeps doing what he does best.

On Saturday, the Northeast Pennsylvania Miners’ running back set a semi-pro national record for career rushing yards in the Miners’ 37-0 victory over the Hudson County Stars. Jack­son-Bey has 15,302 career yards, one more than former Scranton Eagles standout Frank Yanik.

“It’s really an honor,” Jack­son- Bey said. “Over the past few days, I’ve had a lot of calls from family, friends and old team­mates to congratulate me and I have been reading all the sto­ries that have been written and it’s really starting to sink in.

“It really is a true honor.”

The 31-year-old Bridgeton, NJ, native, who played at Lackawanna College in 1994 before moving to Delaware State in 1996, has had an illus­trious career. In 1999, while playing for the Scranton Eagles, Jackson-Bey ran for 2,433 yards, second most in national minor league foot­ball history, on a national­record 393 carries as the Eagles captured the Empire Football League championship. Five years later, Jackson-Bey led the Towanda-based Northern Tier Bruins to a United States Foot­ball Association national championship.

“Sharing the national cham­pionship and winning the EFL title with the Eagles, those are the biggest moments of my career.” Jackson-Bey said. “For me, I’ve always tried to put the team goals and accomplish­ments first.” After a pair of 1,000-yard sea­sons - with the Southern Tier Green Machine in 2005 and the Hudson Valley Saints last sea­son - the running back returned to the region, becom­ing the first Miner to sign a contract in January.

“Donnie is a quiet leader, but when he speaks, he has every­one’s attention in the locker room.” head coach Dan LaMag­na said. ” He’s very well-read and he is like having a second quarterback out there. Donnie knows where everybody should be and has the ability to see and call out adjustments on the field as needed.”

After more than a decade of traveling around the East Coast and parts of Canada playing for little, and more often than not, no pay, one may wonder what keeps Jackson-Bey motivated.

“Early on, I was hoping to catch on somewhere, like NFL Europe or the CFL (Canadian Football League). Then you reach the point where you’re 27, 28 years old, you start to realize that the window of opportunity to advance to that level is closing,” said Jackson- Bey, who had NFL tryouts with the Carolina Panthers (1998), Dallas Cowboys (1999) and Phil­adelphia Eagles (2001).

“Over the last few years, what keeps me going is the camaraderie with teammates and coaches, building a team with one common goal - to win.”

Jackson-Bey career

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