WALDORF, Md. — A small frame sits atop a table in the entryway of the Jackson home. It’s electronic, alternating in a slideshow from one image to the next. Most of the photos capture the family’s joy. Almost always front and center is Khyree.
“I just love this one,” his mother, Ebbony, says.
Eyeblack is smeared beneath Khyree’s eyes inside the tiny frame. His arm wraps around his younger brother’s neck. Their father stares at the brotherly affection with pride. The family is standing on the field after a victory at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., relishing another opportunity to be together.
The warmth of it all is what gets them. It’s how happy they all seem, how at ease. To look at the photo on this frigid afternoon in early January, to even ponder the memory at all, is to acknowledge what life felt like before July 6 — before they lost their hero, their protector, their friend.
Khyree, his father, Raymond, says, was the family’s connector. His football career took them to 20 states, some multiple times. His comments like, “That receiver won’t route me up,” or, “No way I get blurred by that guy,” made them shake their heads in embarrassment, as in here he goes again. But the truth is, colors were brighter and days were better because of his energy.
Listening to Raymond say this, Ebbony nods from across the room.
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They have learned all too harshly over the last five months that there’s no replacement for how his presence made them feel. And yet they continue to look for positives — wherever they can find them — because that’s what he would mandate. The brief moments of bliss can occur at any time. And more of them have happened than they would have imagined because of this Minnesota Vikings playoff team.
Maybe it’s watching the defense celebrate a turnover, knowing how hard Khyree would be laughing at some of his teammates’ dance moves. Maybe it’s attending a Vikings game at U.S. Bank Stadium and spotting team owner Zygi Wilf wearing a “KJ” pin. Maybe it’s coach Kevin O’Connell pulling Ebbony and Raymond aside to ask about Khyree’s 13-year-old brother, Kolston, who, as if on cue, walks into the living room.
The braids flop atop his head as he tosses a Vikings football into the air. He glances out the window.
“It’s snowing!” Kolston blurts.
Ebbony turns, sees the thick flurries falling and smiles.
“That,” she says, “came out of nowhere.”
(Courtesy of Ebbony Jackson)
Slumped over on the couch, Raymond swipes at his phone. He is looking for one of Khyree’s Instagram posts from April. Once he finally finds the collage, captioned with “Cause it get cold like Minnesota 🥶”, he shows it to Ebbony.
She presses the phone and looks at each of the pictures. In one, he wears a purple Vikings flatbill cap. His expression almost reflects disbelief, as if he were blown away that his dream had actually come true.
After a year at Arizona Western College in Yuma, Khyree returned home and quit football. He sliced deli meats at a local supermarket to pass the time, dished chicken into bowls at Chipotle and swept the sidewalks at Six Flags. Conversations with coaches and an itch to return to the field steered him back toward football. Fort Scott Community College gave him a chance, then East Mississippi, Alabama and Oregon.
He was shopping at a local mall when the Vikings called to tell him they were drafting him in the fourth round with the 108th pick. He immediately FaceTimed his mother.
“Hey, Ma!” he said, per usual.
“Hey, Khyree,” she responded, as she so often did.
The size of his smile told her everything she needed to know.
“He was just the happiest,” Ebbony says, “and we were, too. That’s what’s so hard to grasp about all of this. How could your best day and your worst day happen so close to each other? How could your best year and your worst year be the same?”
In the wee hours of July 6, not even three months after that draft call came, a silver Infiniti collided with a maroon Dodge Charger carrying Khyree and some friends in Prince George’s County, Md. The Charger traveled off the right side of the roadway and struck multiple tree stumps. Maryland State Police responded to the crash, pronouncing Khyree, 24, who had been in the front passenger seat, dead. Two of Khyree’s closest friends, Anthony Lytton Jr., 24, and Isaiah Hazel, 23, were also killed.
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One of the first people to call the Jacksons in the aftermath of the tragedy was O’Connell. The Vikings head coach had been in California, enjoying a brief summer getaway with family. The news devastated him. The only thing he knew to do — the only thing he could do — was contact the family to make sure they knew he and the Vikings were going to be there for them.
“I mean,” Ebbony says, “I can still just hear the emotion in his voice.”
The next day, Jasper Brinkley, the Vikings’ director of player engagement, called the family and said, “I’m going to be with y’all from here on out.”
“OK,” Ebbony remembers thinking, understandably cynical and distraught.
Before hanging up, Brinkley reiterated, “I promise. From here … on … out.”
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
Now Ebbony is scrolling through her phone, looking for a recent video.
“Watch this,” she says, turning the phone to Raymond.
It’s Brinkley, wearing a purple and black sweatshirt inside the Vikings facility, wishing the family a Happy New Year. Ebbony had told him about the family’s Christmas plans to retreat to a cabin near Philadelphia because she couldn’t bear to stay home. Khyree, she had told Brinkley, loved nothing more than to arrive with gifts for the holidays. Staying in Maryland would have been too much for her to handle.
Rather than replying via text, he sent this video, wanting her to see his face.
“That was a beautiful Christmas y’all had,” he says. “Y’all making me sad. What y’all up to now? I’m ready to talk some trash.” Raymond smiles.
“He is consistent,” Ebbony says. “He reaches out pretty much weekly. And there have been times when he has called, and sometimes he’ll call on FaceTime. I may not be having a good day, and I may not answer. And he’ll send a text. Or he’ll call back.
“I remember one time I just answered, and I remember him saying, ‘I just felt it in my spirit that you needed to hear from me.’ He’s like, ‘Just let it out.’ I was having a really hard time that day. He was right.”
Brinkley’s promise mirrored an organizational promise. Before Khyree’s funeral, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah informed the Jacksons that the team would be paying a portion of the expenses. Adofo-Mensah told them he’d be attending along with O’Connell, defensive coordinator Brian Flores, special teams coordinator Matt Daniels, defensive backs coach Daronte Jones and rookie edge rusher Dallas Turner. Minnesota planned to fly the entire team to Maryland but decided against it so as not to detract from the joint service honoring Hazel.
At the service, Adofo-Mensah handed Kolston a helmet and a football. O’Connell then surprised the Jacksons by getting up to speak to those in attendance.
Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell talking about Khyree Jackson today at his funeral. Here he mentioned that Khyree was fighting through shoulder issues, and wanted to play through it for the betterment of the team.
“He looked at me, and said, ‘Nope, I can play. I have to be out there… pic.twitter.com/3ffDQruVAW
— VikingzFanPage (@vikingzfanpage) July 26, 2024
“I thought I was cried out,” Raymond says, “but KO got up there, and it started all over again.”
The relationship between family and team did not end there. The Vikings invited Kolston to be an honorary captain at the team’s first preseason game, against the Raiders. For the September home game against the Texans, the team held a celebration of life for Khyree involving players and coaches. And in November before the home game against the Colts, Brinkley coaxed the family into coming up for “rookie weekend,” a program the Vikings hold for the parents of their rookies where they introduce them to staffers and host them for the game.
Ebbony and Raymond initially resisted the trip. They did not want to overshadow the other families, nor did they know what immersing themselves in the environment would do for them as they grieved. Brinkley’s urging tipped the scales, and they could not have been more grateful. Walking through the locker room, they noticed rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy had taped over his nameplate with: 31, Jackson. Crisscrossing the third-floor offices, they saw a portrait of Khyree hanging next to Adofo-Mensah’s desk.
Raymond revisited Khyree’s college days with Turner, who had played with Khyree at Alabama and lived next to him during workouts this summer. Ebbony met veteran safety Josh Metellus, who had donated on his own volition to Khyree’s service, and rookies such as cornerback Dwight McGlothern, who would say later that he wanted to see them as much as they wanted to see him.
Ebbony’s personality reminded McGlothern of Khyree, and Raymond looked so similar.
“I just wanted to hug them,” McGlothern says.
Not only did O’Connell highlight the Jacksons in meetings with the other parents, but also he saw them on the sidelines before the game. He beelined over, dapped up Kolston, and said, “I didn’t get a chance to say hi to you the other day, man. Are you good?” O’Connell then shook hands with Raymond and hugged Ebbony. “It’s great to see you guys,” he said.
In private, O’Connell maintains that as long as he’s coaching in Minnesota, honoring Khyree will be a focal point.
“It’s so personal there, man,” Raymond says.
“It has not felt like people checking a box,” Ebbony adds. “It just feels so genuine.”
(Andy Kenutis / Minnesota Vikings)
It’s later in the evening, and Raymond, Ebbony and Kolston are seated in a booth at Outback Steakhouse. A waiter places an appetizer of ahi tuna in the middle of the table. Kolston scrunches his face.
“What is that?” he asks.
Ebbony and Raymond cackle, looking at each other with an unspoken understanding of how much they need to cherish moments like these.
This, all of this, has been unthinkably difficult. Raymond’s stomach churns almost every day, thinking about the collision. Ebbony constantly visits Khyree’s burial site, surrounded by a beautiful flower garden, because sometimes that’s all she knows to do.
They plan to honor him in every way they can. They’re creating a foundation to host football camps and sponsor scholarships. Artists are designing a logo resembling one of Khyree’s tattoos. Lasered on his arm were boxes with the words faith, humility, perseverance, determination and authenticity inside them. Ebbony once asked Khyree how he chose those words. “Look at my story,” he said.
Raymond also thinks they’ll speak to prospective athletes about the importance of driver safety.
“I think you can show people stats all day long,” Ebbony says, “but when you see the faces of parents who lost a child, it may hit you (harder).”
They also want to pour everything they can into Kolston. He’s playing on three basketball teams these days. When he’s not at school or practice, he’s often watching sports. He grew up a Patriots fan, but now, like his parents, he’s adopted a new team. A group of players who came together more quickly than anyone imagined — partially, as Flores said this week, because of how much they had to lean on one another in the aftermath of a tragedy.
(Andy Kenutis / Minnesota Vikings)
Sitting here at Outback, Kolston scrolls on his phone and shows his parents a reel of Justin Jefferson.
“Khyree couldn’t wait to go up against him,” Raymond says.
“I said to Khyree: ‘You’re going to get cooked,’” Ebbony adds. “He said, ‘Ma, do you know who I am?’”
“He might get blurred,” Raymond says, “but Jefferson would not have routed him up every time.”
They’re laughing again at the table, moving from one cherished memory to another. Somehow, the subject returns to the snow, and whether or not Kolston’s school might be canceled.
Raymond remembers Khyree shoveling neighbors’ yards as a child. While listening to him tell stories about his son zipping up and down the neighborhood with a shovel, Ebbony grabs her phone and pulls up a Facebook post from 10 years ago. It’s a portrait of Khyree and Kolston, bundled up in winter coats and beanies, reaching down to the ground to make snowballs. A notification alerted her to the memory in the morning; otherwise, she may not have recalled it.
She took it as a sign, another one of those brief moments of bliss that keep her and all of them going.
“And get this: It wasn’t even supposed to snow today,” she says, looking up from her phone and into Kolston’s eyes. “I’m glad it did.”
(Top illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Andy Kenutis / Minnesota Vikings, Ric Tapia / Getty Images and courtesy of Ebbony Jackson)
