Courtesy Frederick News Post

(April 2, 2010) The West Virginia men's basketball team is about to make its first NCAA Tournament Final Four appearance since 1959.

Bona fide links between that long-ago Mountaineers team and this one are rare, but one of them lives in Frederick County.

His name is Jay Jacobs, a 72-year-old Walkersville resident.

In 1959, Jacobs played for West Virginia alongside the legendary Jerry West, sitting on the bench when the Mountaineers fell to the University of California in the national championship game. These days, Jacobs serves as color analyst for the WVU men's team on the Mountaineer Sports Network, and he'll be there Saturday, providing listeners with insight when West Virginia faces Duke in Indianapolis.

"When you come back after playing in it 51 years ago and now you're broadcasting it, it's pretty special," Jacobs said.

Jacobs left Wednesday for Indy. He's ready for the latest and perhaps biggest assignment of his 35-year career as a broadcaster -- both on TV and radio -- for the Mountaineers.

Thanks to his connection to West Virginia's last Final Four team, during the program's golden era, Jacobs has done several interviews with the media. Not that Mountaineers fans needed to be informed about him. His voice reaches them on stations in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Aside from doing games, he also does a weekly radio show with Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins, going back-and-forth with the strong-willed basketball man.

"It's like two hours of 'Seinfeld.' He beats up on me and I come back on him," said Jacobs, who didn't exactly set scoring records when he played at West Virginia. "He cracks on me about my career points."

In West Virginia, where he lives during basketball season, Jacobs is a household name. But Jacobs figured most people in Frederick

County didn't know about his broadcasting job in Mountaineer country. That was fine with him -- he's not one to crave the limelight. Retired as an administrator from Frederick County Public Schools, he enjoys himself on the golf course and frequents a bagel shop.

And he does hold a special place in Frederick County basketball history. Jacobs coached Thomas Johnson's boys basketball team before legendary Tom Dickman took over the program.

"And the rest is history," Jacobs.

Jacobs stopped coaching because he became an administrator at TJ, but he wasn't through with basketball. He started broadcasting high school games for a Hagerstown cable outlet, covering games in Hagerstown, Frederick and Cumberland. When someone from WVU's athletic department was starting a West Virginia TV network, tapes of Jacobs' work were sent to him.

As Jacobs said once again, "The rest is history."

Eventually, Jacobs was doing Mountaineers telecasts. He would work alongside broadcasters Jack Fleming -- the voice he used to listen to as a kid while keeping score -- and Woody O'Hara.

This job made sense, considering Jacobs' history with the program and the town.

Growing up in Morgantown, W.Va., Jacobs came to the Mountaineers as a guard. Thanks to an ankle injury, he saw limited action on the team that fell to California, 71-70, in the 1959 NCAA championship game. But he still savors the experience of being part of that team.

"The excitement of it, and all the small towns united to follow us ..." he said.

Despite the passion of locals, the event didn't receive nearly as much national exposure as it does now. There was no network TV coverage, no horde of sports writers. ESPN and the Internet didn't exist. There was nothing like the media mob Jacobs will be a part of this week.

He's been doing mostly radio since the early 1990s because the Big East took over TV rights after the Mountaineers joined that conference. Jacobs still does telecasts for the West Virginia women's team, and he does some non-conference men's games on TV.

He takes a different approach for each medium. On TV, play-by-play announcers don't spend as much time as their radio counterparts describing action because viewers can see it.

"On radio, you have to paint the picture, and a guy like me has to jump in and out with commentary in about eight seconds," Jacobs said. "Radio is absolutely great, and I've got a great face for it."

To keep up the pace, he needs a quick pace of speech -- he asked if he was talking too fast during an interview -- and a quick mind. At 72, he still possesses both.

He also needs in-depth knowledge about the teams he's watching. While he knows West Virginia inside-out, he usually does at least two hours of pre-game preparation to familiarize himself with the Mountaineers' opponents.

This week, he'll be studying Duke.

Earlier this season, Jacobs didn't expect the Mountaineers to go so far. He thought the team turned a corner after falling to Connecticut, 73-62, on Feb. 22. A pivotal moment came during a postgame interview Huggins gave that night to Jacobs and his broadcast partner Tony Caridi.

"He spilled his guts," Jacobs said.

Huggins told listeners about a locker-room talk he gave to his players, telling them how much they meant to the state of West Virginia and how they had a chance to be special.

The Mountaineers haven't lost since.

Jacobs praised Huggins, mentioning his will to win, motivating skills and focus on preparing players psychologically. He's also seen the adaptable coach win with players recruited by predecessor John Beilein, who preferred outside shooters.

Jacobs noted Huggins' reputation for having players go on to the NBA. One of them was Linganore graduate Joe Alexander, who made huge strides playing for Huggins and was picked No. 8 overall by the Milwaukee Bucks.

Players like Alexander and coaches like Huggins have come and gone during Jacobs' tenure. Heck, he was calling games when Huggins played for West Virginia in the mid-1970s

How long will Jacobs keep it up? As long as he can perform the job efficiently.

At the very least, he hopes for two more games this year, allowing him to return to the national championship game 51 years after he last went that far as a Mountaineer player.

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