Jackson Vahue

Jackson Vahue is a fictional character from the HBO prison drama Oz played by Rick Fox, a former NBA basketball star and champion with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Vahue was a basketball player when he was sent to Oz. He was a major role model to Augustus Hill, but with his major drug addiction he let most of Hill's hopes down, and when Hill later caught him “roughing up” cellist Eugene Dobbins for no real reason, Hill tells him to “recognize Dobbins talent” for playing cello. This angers Vahue and he later smashes the cello in spite of Hill. He seems to regain some respect when he carries the injured Dobbins to safety (with some insistence from Hill) during the riot, resulting in his arrest.

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He makes a small appearance in Season 2 when he delivers the news to Hill of Dobbins’ death. He disappeared after that, presumably moved to gen-pop.

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Jackson came back in the fourth season when he beat Tim McManus and officer Dave Brass in a best-of-three game of basketball where he was teammates with Agamemnon Busmalis. During this time, he was transferred back to Em City, where Augustus Hill, still upset at Vahue for betraying him in Season One, ruins his chance for early parole. Augustus contacts the woman Jackson beat up and raped, to which she speaks in his parole hearing, resulting in the board denying his parole, and keeping Jackson in OZ. Jackson, frustrated, fights the COs at lunch and is thrown into the hole. Once out and back on the court, Jackson & Busmalis easily win Game 1, but Officer Johnson whacks Vahue in the knee with a nightstick, severely injuring him for Game 2. With Jackson less than 100%, Brass and McManus win Game 2, which has the entire prison population angry at Vahue (probably because they bet on him and lost). Dave Brass was recurited by a scout who saw the games, to play in the NBA on the Sacramento Kings, but before he could go, Enrique Morales arranges to have his achilles tendon sliced, for fearing of losing the third game and the series. With Brass out, Officer Sean Murphy steps in Brass spot as McManus teammate and plays in the 3rd game, which Vahue and Busmalis (mostly Vahue) dominates and wins.

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Vahue is paroled early and returns to the prison to talk with young prisoners about his life, and surviving in Oz in general. When he denies Brass tickets or backstage access to games, Brass snaps and attempts to kill him at a game. Brass is arrested but finds joy in achieving some of the fame he had hoped to gain from playing basketball.