Former West Virginia University cager Jay Jacobs has been analyzing Mountaineer men’s basketball games for nearly five decades.
The Morgantown native was initially hired by Paul Miller as a basketball analyst for MSN television in 1977, forming a three-way paring with the late Jack Fleming and Woody O’Hara. He also did television work for Home Team Sports, Creative Sports Marketing and ESPN doing Sun Belt Conference games before transitioning primarily to radio in the mid-1990s when he teamed with popular “Voice of the Mountaineers” Jack Fleming, and then with veteran play-by-play man Tony Caridi starting with the 1996-97 season.
During his time broadcasting Mountaineer basketball, Jacobs has been on hand to describe some of the greatest moments in WVU basketball history, including eight trips to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, an Elite Eight appearance in 2005 and a trip to the Final Four in 2010.
In all, Jacobs has been involved with 19 NCAA Tournament teams, not to mention the two appearances West Virginia made in 1959-60 when he was a WVU player.
Through the years, Jacobs has also done radio and television work for Mike Carey’s highly successful Mountaineer women’s program.
Jacobs was an all-state player at Morgantown High and was part of the Jerry West era at West Virginia University – considered the “Golden Era” of Mountaineer basketball.
Jay frequently jokes that his biggest contribution to those successful WVU teams in the late-1950s was blocking the draft coming in from the outside while sitting on the bench at the old Field House , keeping star players Jerry West, Willie Akers, Bobby Joe Smith and Bucky Bolyard from getting sick during the season.
Following graduation, Jacobs coached four years at Union High in Benwood, West Virginia, and then several more at Thomas Johnson High in Frederick, Maryland, through the 1973-74 season when he left coaching for an administrative job in the Frederick County school system.
In 1996, he retired from his job as assistant principal at Ballenger Middle School to devote his full time to Mountaineer basketball.
In addition to game broadcasts, Jacobs is also a popular contributor to the Bob Huggins radio show produced weekly by Mountaineer Sports Properties. During each basketball season, the dedicated Jacobs faithfully makes the two-hour, wintertime drive across the Maryland mountains from Frederick to Morgantown to work Mountaineer basketball games.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from WVU in physical education in 1961 and a master’s degree in secondary education with an emphasis in administration in 1962.
Jay and his wife, Bonnie, currently reside in Walkersville, Maryland. They have one son, John, and one daughter, the late Lisa Quick, plus four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
