Auburn legend Bo Jackson said Wednesday his absence from the dedication of the Frank Thomas statue outside Plainsman Park during A-Day festivities last month was because he’s been dealing with an unusual medical condition.

Appearing on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” on Birmingham’s WJOX-FM, Jackson said he’s been suffering from chronic hiccups for nearly a year. The former two-sport star and superstar Nike pitchman — who now makes his home in the Chicago area — was in town to play in the Regions Tradition Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament at Greystone.

“I wasn’t there (at the Thomas ceremony) because of dealing with hiccups,” Jackson said. “I’ve had the hiccups since last July. I’m getting a medical procedure done the end of this week, I think, to try to remedy it. I’ve been busy sitting at the doctor’s poking me, shining lights down my throat, probing me every way they can to find out why I’ve got these hiccups. That’s the only reason I wasn’t there.”

Thomas played baseball at Auburn from 1987-89 and also spent a year on the football team, narrowly missing being teammates with Jackson in both sports (they were later teammates professionally with the Chicago White Sox in the early 1990s, however). Known as “The Big Hurt,” Thomas played 19 major-league seasons and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Asked if doctors have figured out a cause of or a solution to his hiccups problem, the 60-year-old Jackson responded “hell, no.”

“I have done everything — scare me, hang upside down, drink water, smell the ass of a porcupine,” Jackson said, “it doesn’t work.”

Jackson made his annual visit to the Regions Tradition Pro-Am, where he played as part of a group with American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, former R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills and Champions Tour pro Scott McCarron. He was joined in his WJOX interview by new Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze, who played in a group with PGA legend Ernie Els, among others.

Though he’s regarded as one of the greatest all-around athletes in history, golf remains one game Jackson hasn’t mastered. But he’s OK with that, he said, given that he hasn’t practiced it as much as at least one other pastime for which he was notorious as a young boy.

“The golf game sucks as usual,” Jackson said. “It ain’t nothing to brag about.

“… Put it to you this way, if golf was throwing rocks, I’d be the baddest man on the planet. I’d be the baddest man on the planet. But I quit throwing rocks because I got in too much trouble. If I play too much golf, I’m gonna get in trouble. So just every now and then, someone will call me ‘hey, you want to play?’ So I pick up the sticks and go play.”