Franklin Willis Jackson was born on May 4, 1998, in Washington, D.C., the second-oldest of five children in a family that would eventually stretch across the country and across faiths. His father, Alvin B. Jackson, grew up in Buford, South Carolina, and Silver Spring, Maryland, played basketball and baseball at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, earned an MBA from Johns Hopkins, and worked in national security consulting and the aerospace industry — a vice president at Boeing subsidiary Insitu. His mother, Juleen, had roots in Utah. The family lived in D.C. and then Hood River, Oregon, before relocating to the town of Lehi, Utah, when Frank was eleven years old.
The Jacksons were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — Alvin had converted at an inner-city church in D.C. in 1992, drawn to a congregation diverse in color and class, where he coached a youth basketball team and stayed in touch with the fatherless boys he mentored for years afterward. Frank grew up surrounded by his faith, and like nearly every LDS kid in Utah County, he assumed he would serve a two-year mission after high school. It was not a question. It was the natural progression.
But first, there was basketball. Alvin coached Frank from age six, dragging him to the church gym at 6 a.m. before school. Frank played baseball, football, golf, and basketball — his father insists baseball was his best sport — but basketball was fastest, and fastest was what Frank wanted. As a freshman at Lehi High School, he averaged 10.1 points per game and scored 30 in a game against powerhouse Lone Peak. That performance caught the attention of Lone Peak coach Quincy Lewis, and Frank transferred before his sophomore year.
At Lone Peak, everything accelerated. As a sophomore in 2013-14, Jackson averaged 17.9 points and helped the Knights win the Utah 5A state championship — their fourth consecutive title, a first in state history. As a junior, he exploded: 26.9 points per game, a 54-point outburst against Clark County at the Jerry Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas that set a school record, and an invitation to the NBPA Top 100 Camp. At the Under Armour Elite 24 in New York, he scored 20 points with a jaw-dropping 360-degree fastbreak dunk that went viral on the broadcast. His AAU coach with the Utah Prospects compared him to Russell Westbrook at the same age.
Jackson had committed to BYU at age fourteen — a proud basketball school eighteen miles from home, the natural choice for a Mormon kid from Alpine. But as his profile rose, so did his ambition. He later recalled attending the NBPA camp and hearing other kids talk about being recruited by Duke, Georgetown, and North Carolina. 'I was kinda sitting back like, I can compete with all these kids. Why can't I get the attention they're getting?' In November 2014, he decommitted from BYU and reopened his recruitment.
The decision was seismic in Utah. Jackson wasn't just changing schools; he was changing a life plan. A Mormon player leaving BYU for a national powerhouse meant confronting the mission question head-on. Coaches from Duke, Arizona, Stanford, Maryland, UCLA, and Utah all came calling. Coach K and two assistants flew to Alpine for dinner at the Jackson home. Frank's parents were sold by June 2015. Frank took a little longer.
On September 1, 2015, he committed to Duke. As a senior, he averaged 28.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.0 assists, was named Utah Mr. Basketball, Utah Gatorade Player of the Year, and Salt Lake Tribune Player of the Year. He finished his high school career with 2,079 points — sixth in Utah history. He was named a McDonald's All-American — the first from Utah in sixteen years — and won the McDonald's All-American dunk contest, sharing game co-MVP honors after scoring 19 points. He was the best player to come out of Utah in a generation, and he was headed 2,000 miles from home to play for Coach K.
The mission question lingered. His best friend, Will Watanabe, would board a flight to Tokyo the day after Jackson's Duke debut at Madison Square Garden, beginning a two-year mission with no smartphone, no social media, and only two phone calls home per year. Jackson chose a different path. 'I'm in the spotlight,' he told ESPN's Dana O'Neil that fall. 'Everyone is watching us. I can use that as a chance to be a light in the world, in a sense, to show people how I live and what I believe.' He would make basketball his mission, and his mission basketball. He was the first Duke player to openly frame his career as an act of faith.