Jamaal Charles wasn’t always built like this.
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The lithe 5’11, 200-pounder was a self-described heavy kid during his youth, years before starring for the Texas Longhorns and then the Kansas City Chiefs, a football career filled with accomplishments and accolades — 2005 national champion, four-time track and field All-American, four-time Pro Bowler, the NFL’s all-time leader in average yards per carry for a running back, and, as of last month, a nominee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Growing up in Port Arthur, home of the world’s largest oil refinery at the southernmost tip of the Golden Triangle, where Texas and Louisiana culture meld together next to the Gulf of Mexico, Charles loved eating his mother’s rice and beans. He wanted beans in everything, he told Burnt Orange Nation on Wednesday. Still does.
So when Bush’s beans approached Charles and his team about a partnership to promote the company’s Mike’s hot honey grillin’ beans and sweetened the offer with a pair of limited-edition Bush’s BeanBQ Boots made by The Shoe Surgeon, Charles couldn’t pass it up.
Adorned with heat-sensitive thermochromic leather, the boots tie in with Charles’ country background from Port Arthur and his burgeoning post-playing career interest in tailgating culture.
“When they said, ‘Oh, we’ve got some tailgating boots you can rock to the tailgate,‘ I was super excited. Being from Texas, you’ve got to come big and bold. So they had pull out some big and bold tailgate boots,” Charles said.
“I think I’m a cowboy sometimes when I put my boots on.”
The former Texas standout debuted the boots at SEC Media Days and will be wearing them again at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday at the Bush’s footprint at Chevrolet Park Plaza by the State Fair’s Penn Gate.
This year’s grudge match between the Longhorns and the Sooners marks the 20-year anniversary of Charles bursting onto the national scene as a true freshman with an iconic 80-yard touchdown run in the cathartic 45-12 Texas victory that ended a five-game Oklahoma winning streak that included blowouts in 2000 and 2003.
With the eventual outcome still in doubt late in the first quarter as the Horns led 7-6, Charles took a zone-read handoff from quarterback Vince Young, ran through one tackle, spun out of another, and used his 10.1 100-meter speed to pull away from the rest of the Sooners defense.
“Ain’t nobody could touch me,” Charles said of his open-field speed.
He calls that run his best memory from the Red River Rivalry and laughing in recollection of the hit to his ulnar nerve on his right arm before he broke free, leaving it tingling through the run and dangling by his side at the end of it. Fortunately for Charles and Texas, he was carrying the ball in his other arm.
Not all the Cotton Bowl memories for Charles are positive, though — 18 years later, a third-quarter fumble at the Oklahoma 5-yard line caused by Sooners linebacker Curtis Lofton and recovered by defensive tackle Gerald McCoy still stings. In that 2007 matchup, Texas was on the verge of breaking the 14-14 tie on that drive before falling 28-21 thanks to the fumble by Charles and a go-ahead 35-yard touchdown pass from Sam Bradford to Malcolm Kelly in the fourth quarter.
“That was one of the hardest, most hurt feelings ever. I can’t even swallow it,” Charles said, the pain of it evident all these years later.
Because Charles didn’t follow the rivalry growing up, his 2005 touchdown run was his first experience of it after then-Texas head coach Mack Brown sold the young running back on his ability to swing the series in the wake of the monumental decision made the year before by Adrian Peterson to head north of the Red River instead of playing for the Longhorns.
“Coach Brown said, ‘Hey, we need somebody to come in and set a tone to beat Oklahoma,’” Charles recalled.
“I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m coming and I’m gonna do my thing, break an 80-yard, 60- yard touchdown.”
Charles did his part and saw the path towards a title open up — in those days, when the Big 12 was split into North and South divisions, OU under Bob Stoops was the primary obstacle to a conference title and anything after it.
Lose to the Sooners and it was all off the table.
“If you beat Oklahoma, we’ve got a chance to make it anywhere we’ve got to,” Charles said. “I guess the road after that should be easy because Oklahoma is the big, big name in the conference. So if you make it past them, the road is open after that.”
For Texas, it led to an undefeated season and the national championship on Young’s 4th and 5 touchdown run to beat USC in one of the greatest college football games ever played.
By the time the 2007 season came along, Charles was no longer playing behind the same linemen who led the Horns to the title as the group regressed significantly. It didn’t matter to him, as evidenced by the furious comeback against Nebraska that saw Charles run for 216 yards and three touchdowns in the fourth quarter in the 28-25 win.
“I just wanted to show people my abilities. They came in our house, that game we played against them. I just put a chip on my shoulder,“ Charles said.
As star quarterback Colt McCoy left the game briefly and was replaced by John Chiles, Charles put the team on his back, regardless of what type of blocking he was getting in front of him.
“I was different than any other running back — I don’t need linemen to make plays. That was just me. That was my mindset. I always had that, even when I was little,” Charles said. “If you’re a playmaker, you’re gonna make plays.”
Charles doesn’t see that same ability on the current Texas roster despite the program’s rich tradition at the position, part of the reason he thinks the Longhorns are in for “a struggling year” after the undeserved preseason No. 1 ranking he believes should have gone to the Buckeyes after their national championship.
“We’ve got to find the right running back to build the Texas legacy up and I feel like we’re missing it right now. We’ve got to figure out running the ball. We’ve got Arch [Manning]. They can’t put it all on Arch. We need another playmaker to make plays for him as a running back,” Charles said.
“We can’t let Arch be the lead runner on the team.”
It was pressure that Charles helped take off of McCoy in particular, aided by his elite hip fluidity acquired from all the stretching he did to run track, ghost cuts that saw Charles get sideways and leave nothing for defenders to hit.
People always told Charles that he was the only back they’d ever seen who get could up the field running sideways.
“It was a pretty cool ability that I had. It was pretty funny — people would ask me, ‘Hey, bro, how do you run sideways?’ I don’t know,“ Charles said.
He didn’t have to know how he did it, he just had to do it, and in the NFL it produced 7,563 career rushing yards and 44 touchdowns on the ground and another 2,593 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns through the air. The 5.4 yards per attempt by Charles are still the best in NFL history for a running back and, he believes, enough to make it into the Hall of Fame in the Class of 2026.
Injuries limited Charles to 707 rushing yards over his final four seasons and ended his professional career at 32 years old, leaving one big regret.
“I wish I would have had more time so I could have done more. I think if I’d had more time, I think it definitely would have prepared me to be in the Hall of Fame really early,” he said.
When Charles had it, though? He really had it.
And the fuel for it, all the while? It was the beans, man.
