Russell Jacquet-Acea has the power to do two things to us.

The 55-year-old Harlem, New York-born athlete will inspire some of us. Others of us, he’ll make mad. But the making mad won’t be his fault. It’ll be ours.

It’ll be our fault because looking at what Jacquet-Acea does will force us to do a little self-examination, an examination that starts with one question: Am I doing all I can to make me and my community better?

Jacquet-Acea will be here to compete in the State Games of the West. Normally, the Taos, N.M., resident competes in the decathlon and the pentathlon. He’s the country’s top ranked decathlete in his age group. He’s third in the pentathlon. He’s scheduled to enter six events today at the Lewis-Palmer High School track.

Six athletic events? Fifty-five years old? Have to respect that. But others older than him have entered more, and quite possibly have done more. But athletic events only begin to describe Jacquet-Acea.

Call Jacquet-Acea a renaissance man. He’s a throw back, a polymath, a pseudo-Leonardo da Vinci for a new millennium. Actually, Jacquet-Acea and da Vinci might have been friends back in the day – if, that is, they had time to be friends.

Da Vinci is probably best known for his paintings. But he was also a writer, musician, inventor, mathematician, engineer, sculptor, architect, botanist and anatomist – a decathlete in his own right.

The Jacquet-Acea roll call: teacher (astronomy, math, science, history, Spanish, jazz band, concert band and chorus); coach (basketball and track and field); conversational in five languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) and reads Hebrew and Greek; CEO of the Taos Men’s Adult Baseball League; author; and he’s a house manager for an experimental 9,000- square-foot sustainable home in Taos.

Living in that house makes Jacquet-Acea “greener” than most. The house is off the power grid. It uses wind and solar energy to generate electricity. There are devices that collect rainwater and humidity and purify both forms to make drinking water.

Jacquet-Acea is using the time to study how instruments used to sustain the house can help developing nations or places where electricity is nonexistent.

“I’ve been called a jack of all trades and a master of none,” Jacquet-Acea said, laughing. “But I do have a master’s degree. So, I guess I can’t say that.”

Jack of all trades – odds are good few will hold his exploits against him. At times he thinks his talents are spread thin and that if he concentrated on one thing, he could be great.

But, he admits it’s difficult for him to do just one thing – in athletics and the rest of his life.

“I try not to sleep more than six hours a day,” Jacquet-Acea said. “Usually when everybody goes to sleep, about 10 or 11, from that time to usually one or two in the morning, that’s my quiet time. That’s time for me to do stuff like work on my book, other projects and personal stuff. It’s really hard to do it during the day. Folks are calling or e-mailing, problems here and problems there.”

However, Jacquet-Acea’s real passion lies in working with children. Last year was a return to coaching basketball after a 10-year absence. The excitement in his voice was evident as he talked about building a program.

“I have 28 years of coaching, and seeing young kids go in the right direction and giving them some purpose in their lives, that’s probably the most important thing to me,” Jacquet-Acea said. “If you can give them some direction when they’re young and get them on the right track, they’ll make better decisions when they’re older.”

Maybe they’ll decide to be a teacher, maybe an author or a language coach. Then again, they could be decathletes, pentathletes or heptathletes.

Or maybe they might want to do it all.

“Don’t waste time,” Jacquet-Acea said. “Don’t sit around waiting for things to happen. Make them happen.”

Goose Gossage’s Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is at 11:30 a.m. Sunday on ESPN Classic. Photo by JERILEE BENNETT, THE GAZETTE