Jimmy Jacobs | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 18, 1930 |
| Died | March 23, 1988 (aged 58) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | American handball player,boxing manager |
| Spouse | Lorraine Atter |
James Leslie Jacobs (February 18, 1930 – March 23, 1988) was an Americanhandball player,boxing manager, andcomic book and fight film collector.
Born inSt. Louis, Missouri, Jacobs was Jewish.[1] He grew up in a single-parent family in Los Angeles. He dropped out of high school before completing his education but excelled at numerous sports, includingbaseball,basketball,football andhandball. He was credited with running 100 yards (91 m) in under ten seconds, winning askeet shooting championship and shooting rounds ofgolf in the low 70s.[2][3] Jacobs was offered the chance to try out for theUS Olympic basketball team but declined in order to focus on handball.[4] He wasdrafted into the army during theKorean War and was awarded aPurple Heart.[3]
In four-wall handball, Jacobs won his first American singles championship in 1955, defeatingVic Hershkowitz in the final inChicago. In total, he won six American singles championships and six doubles championships (partnering Marty Decatur). He was additionally a three time national champion in three-wall handball.[5] Between 1955 and 1969, he won every national handball competition match he played in.[6][7] In 1966, Robert H. Boyle ofSports Illustrated wrote: "Jacobs is generally hailed as the finest player of all time. Indeed, there are those who say Jacobs is the best athlete, regardless of sport, in the country."[4] In 1970, he was recognized by theUS Handball Association as the "Greatest Handball Player of the Generation".[8] In 1971, on behalf of the United States government, he toured Germany and England with handballerSimon Singer, giving clinics and exhibitions to Air Force personnel.[9]
A longtime boxing enthusiast, Jacobs started collecting films of boxing matches at the age of 17 after reading about the controversial decision inJoe Louis andJersey Joe Walcott's 1947 world heavyweight title fight. Wanting to judge the result for himself, he tracked down and purchased a copy of the fight.[6] Whilst touring Europe as a handball player, he began buying up old fight films, many of which had been shipped out of America in the wake of the 1912 Congressional ban on the interstate trafficking of boxing films.[4] Jacobs became friends with the boxing trainerCus D'Amato. D'Amato secretly trained Jacobs intensively for six months with a view to his facing reigningworld light-heavyweight championArchie Moore, intending to make history by leading a boxer to a world title in his first ever fight. However, the bout failed to materialize. Moore apparently remarked to Jacobs, "There are two possibilities: either you win or I kill you. Both are unacceptable to me."[10]
In 1959 Jacobs went into business with fellow collectorBill Cayton, and together they owned the production companiesThe Greatest Fights of the Century andBig Fights inc.[4] He and Cayton rescued and restored rare films of such fighters asBob Fitzsimmons,Jack Johnson,Jack Dempsey andJames J. Corbett, which might otherwise have been lost forever.[11] In 1974, they purchased theMadison Square Garden fight archive.[12] The result was that between them they amassed the world's largest collection of fight films (between 16,000 and 26,000),[4][7][13][14] dating from the 1890s through to the present day. In 1998 Cayton sold the collection toESPN for a reported $100 million.[12] They also made over 1000 boxing documentaries and productions, includinga.k.a. Cassius Clay,Jack Johnson,The Heavyweight Champions andLegendary Champions; the latter three were nominated forAcademy Awards.[7][15][16]
In 1978 Jacobs and Cayton bought the management contract ofworld light-welterweight championWilfred Benítez from Benitez' father for $75,000 and guided him to two more championships and over $6.5 million in purses.[17][18] The partnership ended in December 1983 when Benitez bought out his contract in order to manage himself.[19] In 1984 they signed the 18-year-oldMike Tyson, who was being trained by Jacobs' old friend D'Amato, and oversaw his rise to becomeundisputed world heavyweight champion; Jacobs became a close friend and mentor of Tyson.[20] They also managedEdwin Rosario, who became a three timeworld lightweight champion, and 1970s middleweight contenderEugene Hart. Jacobs was namedManager of the Year by theBoxing Writers Association of America in 1986.[21]
Jacobs also acquired an extensive collection of comic books, having read them since his youth. His collection was thought to contain between 500,000 and 880,000 comics,[22][23] and had to be stored in a warehouse. Jacobs owned six copies of a rareDetective Comics issue from 1938, worth $10,000 each at the time of his death.[6]
Larry Merchant, who knew Jacobs well, characterized him:
Jimmy Jacobs is the only guy I ever knew who had Three Greatest in front of his name:
- He's the greatest handball player who ever lived, he's regarded as theBabe Ruth of his sport.
- He has the greatest collection of fight films in the world some 98% of all the fight films ever made. 26,000 of them, and
- He has the greatest collection of comic books in the world. Every comic book ever published in America has gone to a warehouse in Los Angeles.
And now he wants a Fourth Greatest, to havethe greatest fighter in the world.
— Larry Merchant, May 20, 1986[24]
Jacobs died ofleukemia in 1988. He is an inductee of theInternational Boxing Hall of Fame, theWorld Boxing Hall of Fame, theInternational Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the US Handball Hall of Fame. In 1990 he was inducted into the inaugural class of theSouthern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[25] He posthumously appeared in the boxing documentariesWhen We Were Kings andTyson in archive footage.
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