You can say his full name (Jeffrey William Wilson), you can recite the key statistics, you can dig out the videos showing him in his prime for the Highlanders, and you can share your favourite memories of the man with a fellow supporter.
But it all starts and ends with that nickname.
Goldie. The golden one. The golden boy of Highlanders and Otago rugby, whose exploits in a free-flowing era of the sport so thrilled his legion of fans.
Those fans became accustomed to seeing the extraordinary from Wilson in a rugby career that only ended because he had the itch to return to cricket.
Representing New Zealand in both sports has been unthinkable for a long time now, and while Wilson ‘‘only’’ rates No3 in our 30 Greatest Highlanders series, meaning two players are considered to have greater impacts on the team, it is unlikely a player of his all-round gifts will be seen again.
Former Highlanders coach Laurie Mains said, when Wilson retired from rugby in 2002 aged 28, replacing the star outside back was virtually impossible.
‘‘Jeff was a huge playmaker and game-breaker, one of those players who don't come along very often.
‘‘There won't be another Jeff. The really class players are one of a kind and he's one of a kind. There'll never be someone who produces the same sort of spectacular play the way he has.
‘‘He has those silky skills you only see in a player once in a decade. At his peak, he was without peer as a winger. We kept our statistics all year and it was hard to find Jeff appear on any of them with a mistake.’’
The late Ron Palenski was the longtime curator of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, into which Wilson was inducted in 2013, and also wrote one of Wilson’s two books.
‘‘In 50 years, people will talk about Jeff Wilson in the same breath as Bert Cooke and George Nepia,’’ Palenski said in 2002.
‘‘And it's probably safe to say he will be the last double All Black.’’
The lad with the golden touch certainly had the complete game.
He was quick and he was smart and he could run and he could kick — for territory or for goal or just far enough ahead that he could regather and score — and he could defend and he could ... yeah, basically he could do everything.
Wilson improvised, inspired and excited, and he loved to express himself, and he played with a sheer and very clear delight in doing what he did.
‘‘I loved to play the game and I think that was communicated to the people who watched me,’’ he said.
Wilson’s appearances for the Highlanders were evenly split between fullback and the right wing, and he was never relegated to the bench.
He was the second Highlander to reach 50 games, and he took particular delight in scoring against (and occasionally winding up) South African teams, notably bringing up a century of first-class tries with a hat-trick in a win over the Stormers in Cape Town.
Wilson was a Southlander who came to national attention when he scored 66 points (nine four-point tries and 15 conversions) in a First XV game for Cargill High School.
He scored a glorious try for the New Zealand Schools team in 1992, and made his debut for the All Blacks a day before his 20th birthday in 1993.
Wilson played 60 tests, scoring a then-record 44 tries, and finished with 151 tries in 230 first-class games.
Rugby, of course, is only half of the Jeff Wilson story.
He played four one-dayers for the New Zealand cricket team in 1993 — yes, the same year he made his All Blacks debut — and he put the rugby boots away in 2002 to give the summer code another crack.
Remarkably, after a 12-year absence, he played two more ODIs and a T20 for the Black Caps, sealing his status as an immortal of New Zealand sport.
Wilson was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2003, reflecting both his sporting achievements and the loyalty he showed when he and Highlanders team-mate Josh Kronfeld signed for New Zealand Rugby in 1995 when the game was nearly torn in two.
He dabbled in coaching and had a spell as director of rugby at the Otago union, but his post-playing career has been most notable for the profile he has built as a commentator and broadcaster.
Wilson married netball great Adine Harper in 2004. They live in Auckland with their two sons.
