Kyle Jackson – or “KJ”, as his teammates call him – is coming off his redshirt-junior year with Kent State. Jackson committed his summer of 2023 to the St. Cloud Rox.

Of qualified players (min. 10 games played in 2023), Jackson has jumped out as a top run producer on the Rox roster. The Rox infielder has flashed incredible potential early into the Rox 2023 campaign, being in the top five on the team in on-base percentage (.425), runs batted in (9), walks (12), stolen bases (5), and so on.

But numbers don’t indicate the intangible quality of being a leader in the clubhouse.

“The thing that makes Kyle such a leader is his overwhelming passion for the game. He wants his teammates to succeed more than him,” Nick Studdard – hitting coach for the St. Cloud Rox – said.

“He’s relentlessly supportive of his guys and possesses an empathy as a ballplayer that’s rare to see in today’s game.”

 In the case of Kyle Jackson, the development of leadership came with adversity to harbor it.

In 2023, Jackson sat atop the leaderboards for Kent State this year in major offensive categories.  He led the Golden Flashes in games played (starting all 58 games), walks (47), and finished third with 17 stolen bases on the year. Jackson partook in his most prominent baseball season yet, a long four years into his college career, this past junior season.

But before reaching the point of leading Kent State to their best regular season record (42-16) since 2016, this Ohio baseball talent learned about trusting the process the hard way. Enter the adversity.

Only months after signing a letter of intent to commit to play baseball at Kent State, he suffered a shoulder injury. After his junior baseball season, Jackson got a complete tear to the labrum in his right shoulder, playing wide receiver for the Bowling Green High School’s football team.

Upon discovering a fracture in his humerus on top of the tear, it sank in quickly that the recovery process would be strenuous.

“My surgeon told me he could fix me for baseball, or for football. They were two completely different surgeries with completely different recoveries…”, Jackson said.

“I chose baseball.”

He feared what his future at Kent State would look like.

“When I told Coach [Jeff] Duncan about my injury, he wasn’t even worried. All he said was ‘Heal up, take [the recovery] seriously, rehab the heck out of it, and I’ll be excited to work with you for your freshman year of college’.”

In career obstacles like this, his support system quickly became a prominent part of his development going forward. Like many, that’s where his family comes in.

“Lucky for me, my brother [Nickolas] has been through what I’ve been through.”

Kyle Jackson’s older brother, Nickolas, had torn his labrum in a similar manner.

“He’s the most resilient guy I know.”

Resilient is a fitting descriptor. As Kyle entered his senior year of high school, his brother Nickolas entered the Army. Now in his fourth year of work in Iraq, his brother remains his biggest inspiration in times of adversity.

“The dude just has no quit, so every time I feel sorry for myself, or I feel I’ve been dealt a bad hand with injuries, I just think about him and how resilient he would want me to be, it just helps me push through.”

Jackson missed his senior year of high school baseball as a result of the recovery process. He “wasn’t fully recovered” until a full two years after the injury, just before leaving for Kent State in the fall of 2020. Jackson earned the honor of being the third overall ranked shortstop in the state of Ohio before exiting High School regardless.

When he arrived on campus in Kent, Ohio, he picked up right where he left off. He led all Kent State freshmen with a .279 batting average in 2021, before raking a team second-best .342 average in 2022.

But the injury bug still lingered. This time – frustratingly so – with no specific cause. At the conclusion of winter training before his sophomore year, he’d felt a pain in his lower back. With uncertainty surrounding the nature of the injury, he tried through the entirety of his sophomore season.

Then it turned into a shooting sensation that traveled down his spine and through the extremity of his right leg. By the conclusion of regular season play in 2022, it had become apparent that something was seriously wrong.

He had ruptured the L-4 and L-5 discs in his lower back. The problem is, back injuries can be masked by ambiguity, because of their sensitive and overarching effects on the human body as a whole.

“It took about four or five months to figure out what was actually going on,” Jackson said.

On June 10th of 2022, Jackson would go under the knife for the second time in four years.

“It could have been a multitude of things…A misalignment, overuse, lifting…The focus by the  time the surgery happened was to just recover, and look forward, not backwards.”

In light of his second major injury in a short period of time, the angst of ambiguity surrounding his career was prevalent. This is where his parents reminded him of the roots of his upbringing: faith. His father, Brian, was a driving factor in ensuring strong relationships between his three sons, as well as their sons’ relationships with their higher power.

“My father’s always there as my support system, he’s always willing to match my emotions, to help me control what I’m feeling. My father’s been a big reason for my spirituality, my relationship with my lord and savior Jesus christ. He’s always instilled that into me and that’s what helps me get through.“

His mother, Melanie, on the other hand, “She’s head honcho,” Jackson said. Like his father, she goes the extra step. Although she shows support through leadership in faith, she shows support by remaining in-the-know when it comes to the world of baseball, and the recovery of the human body.

“She’s super well educated. She would do anything for her children. That’s what inspires me so much; is how much she cares, how she would go the extra mile,” Jackson said.

“Without [my family], I don’t learn about my direction in life.”

Having achieved so much in a journey that’s just beginning in baseball, he’s already learned a lot about himself too, as well as his future.

“The goal in baseball is always to play as long as you can. Everyday could be your last so I just try to enjoy every moment as much as I can… But I know I can help shift mindsets, I want to be a sports psychologist when [baseball is] all done. I think that’s a great field for someone like myself to go into.”

As of late, he remains on track to be playing for a long time. Jackson shined in the Golden Flashes postseason just before arriving in St. Cloud, earning Midwest Athletic Conference All-Tournament Team honors. His spotlight shined the brightest in their biggest game during the conference tournament, hitting a go-ahead three-run home run in Kent State’s win over Western Michigan. Perhaps the biggest occasion in 2023 for the Golden Flashes.

So, with every sport, comes risk. With that, Kyle remains with an underlying goal outside of the sport of baseball: “My ultimate goal is to spread the word of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and touch as many people as I can. I think I can connect with people.”

Many will tell you, you can never be bigger than the game itself.

He exemplifies that to its fullest extent.