For Star subscribers: Steven Jackson was known as a youth soccer coach in Tucson, and he was building an off-grid retirement home in the woods.
Tim Steller Steven Jackson was doing what so many Tucsonans do this time of year: Retreating from the heat to the mountains.
That's one of the reasons the bear attack that killed Jackson, who lived in Armory Park, is so shocking. Jackson, 66, was camped at a property he owned in the Groom Creek area south of Prescott. The bear apparently surprised Jackson, attacking him from behind while he was drinking coffee at a table on his property.
Here, he was best known as a youth soccer coach. He coached the Sabino High School girls' soccer team, spent years with Tucson Soccer Academy and was director of coaching at FC Sonora soccer club. There, he got to be good friends with fellow coach Chris Cox, who called him"a great student and teacher of the game, grabbing techniques and tactics from around the world."
Attack was an 'anomaly'Jackson, who worked in IT for Caliber Home Loans, retired from work and from his soccer coaching in recent years, Cox said. He liked to visit his family in Michigan during summer but increasingly spent summer weeks working on his planned retirement home in the Groom Creek area, which is at an elevation between 5,000 and 6,000 feet.
"Usually there’s a run-up of behavior that ends in an attack. It always involves losing their fear of humans," Hart said."Last time we had a fatal bear attack, it was in Pinetop. A woman startled a black bear dumpster diving."
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