Sport: Handball Inducted: 1979 Country: United States Born: 1931
in St. Louis, Missouri Died: March 23, 1988
Jimmy
Jacobs dominated the sport of Four-Wall Handball from 1955
to 1969,
winning every match he played during
that 15-year span.
Jacobs won the American Handball
Association Singles Championships
and Doubles title with Marty Decatur
six times, and Singles in 1955–1957,
1960, 1964, and 1965. In 1960 and 1965,
he captured both the Singles and Doubles
crowns. Jacobs also won the National
Three-Wall Championship three
times. He did not compete in the National
Championships several years because
of injuries and health problems
or the lack of meaningful competition.
It was Jacobs who coined the
“sword and shield” concept in handball.
He relied on the left hand as his
shield and the right hand as his sword.
In a 1966 issue of Sports Illustrated,
one-time Major League baseball starturned-
author Jim Bouton wrote, “Jacobs
might be the greatest athlete of his
time in any sport.”
There were multiple sides to Jimmy
Jacobs. He also reached international
prominence as a sports historian and
boxing manager.
Historian Jacobs collected the
largest library of boxing films in the
world. A quirky 1912 U.S. law prohibited
interstate commerce of boxing
films, so most prize fights filmed in
America during the first 40 years of
the twentieth century were sold commercially
in Europe. During the 1950s,
as Jacobs toured European military
bases performing handball exhibitions
to entertain U.S. troops, he exercised
his passion for fight films, collecting
every film he could find.
In 1961, Jacobs merged his collection
with that of another collector, businessman-
TV producer Bill Cayton (Greatest
Fights of the Century), and the two organized
the film library, Big Fights, Inc.
The partners continued to track down
rare and lost prints and would eventually
possess the largest collection of boxing
motion pictures in the world—in excess
of 16,000 films. Big Fights, Inc. also
produced more than 1,000 boxing features
and documentaries, including
Academy Award nominees Legendary
Champions, The Heavyweight Champions,
and Jack Johnson.
Boxing manager Jacobs teamed with
Big Fights, Inc. partner Cayton to manage
the careers of three world boxing
champions: Welterweight (also Junior
and Super) Wilfred Benitez, Lightweight
Edwin Rosario, and Heavyweight
Mike Tyson.
Jimmy Jacobs was elected to the International
Boxing Hall of Fame in
1993.