April 30, 2009

LOWELL -- A lot of college athletes are reticent about attending alma maters where their fathers were stars. The comparisons will be inevitable and, more often than not, unfavorable.

But UMass Lowell freshman outfielder Matt Jacobs had no reservations at all about following in his dad's very large and deep footprints.

"He never communicated that to me," said UML baseball coach Ken Harring, "and his dad's legacy still looms large here."

Tom Jacobs was a two-sport star at what was then the University of Lowell. He was on the first ULowell hockey team to win an NCAA Division 2 championship in 1979, setting a team record that still stands with 42 goals that winter while playing right wing on a line centered by future NHL star Craig MacTavish.

Jacobs finished his college career with 97 goals -- tied for second on the school's all-time list -- and is one of only three players in school history with 200 career points. He was an All-American his senior year.

When hockey season was over Tom Jacobs starred as an outfielder on the baseball team. His 15 career homers were a school record when he graduated in 1979 with a .344 batting average and 68 RBI in 99 games.

Settling back in his hometown of Hudson, Mass., Tom Jacobs and his wife had four children, including three sons. But he never pushed them into sports -- except maybe once when Matt was 5 and dad put him on ice skates for the first time.

"I was learning to skate and couldn't stop," Matt remembers. "I hit the boards and got a bloody lip, and I never went back."

"His mother wasn't too happy with me either when she saw him," Tom confessed with a laugh.

None of the three boys ever played hockey.

"If we'd said we wanted to give up baseball, he would probably be surprised," Matt offered. "But he wouldn't say anything against it. He never pushed us."

"I let them find their own ways," said Tom, who attends most of Matt's River Hawks games.

Matt Jacobs was a three-sport star at Hudson High School, quarterbacking the football team and playing all five positions on the basketball court at one time or another.

"He's a better athlete than I thought when we recruited him," Harring said of the 6-foot, 175-pounder. "He can even dunk a basketball."

As a sophomore Matt pitched Hudson High to a 26-0 record before the team lost to Somerset in the state Division 2 baseball championship game. And it was as a pitcher that Harring initially intended to use him.

"He worked out this winter as a lefthanded reliever. But," the coach said, paying Matt Jacobs the highest compliment a ballplayer can hear, "he's a baseball player.

"We knew he could also play first base, and when we tried him in the outfield, he adapted quickly," Harring explained. "He's already made a couple game-saving catches in right field, and we anticipate him being our center fielder when (Luke) Wallace graduates.

"Did I anticipate him being a starter for us his freshman year? Not at all.

"But between the game-winning hits and game-saving catches, well ...."

Although Matt had only one hit, an RBI single, in UML's doubleheader sweep of Assumption earlier this week, he leads the River Hawks in RBI with 23 and is second on the club in stolen bases with 14 in 15 attempts.

He wasn't happy with his .259 batting average at midweek, especially after launching his college career with a seven-game hitting streak. He admits to being a "more aggressive" hitter with runners on base.

"You have to know the situation and get the run in any way you can," he said. Harring hasn't been disappointed at all.

"We see everybody's No. 1," noted Harring, whose River Hawks were 22-13 at midweek. "Nobody's throwing their sixth- or seventh-best pitchers at us."

Harring thinks Jacobs can develop into a pro prospect by his junior year, the next time he will be eligible to be drafted by a major-league team.

"It's tough to hit the ball out of here," the coach said, surveying spacious LeLacheur Park, where the wind blows in stiffly from left field during the spring. "But I can see him hitting 16 or 17 doubles a year."

Tom Jacobs had a brief career in professional hockey after graduating from ULowell. Signed as a free agent by the Boston Bruins, he scored 27 goals and 53 points for Utica of the Eastern Hockey League during his rookie pro year.

He attracted the notice of the Bruins brass at his second training camp. Too much notice, apparently, for some of the veteran Bruins players.

"(Bobby) Schmautz cross-checked me in the back of the neck, so I elbowed him in the back of the head," Tom recalled. "When that fight was over, John Wensink jumped in. "After I had my cut eye sewed up on the bench, Craig MacTavish said, 'I thought you knew Wensink could fight.' I told Mac, 'I didn't fight him. He fought me!"

ULowell hockey coach Bill Riley thought Jacobs had the toughness and t he talent to play in the NHL. But an injury in an exhibition game against the New York Islanders effectively ended his career.

"I tore a thin, little groin muscle that extends into the abdomen," Jacobs explained. "There's an operation for it now, but it's the same injury that ended the careers of Rene Robert and Nevin Markwart."

Jacobs played 21 games in the minors that winter before being told to rest the injury. When it didn't get better, he retired.

"I had no giddyap any more. I don't think it's really healed to this day. I still have problems with it," he said.

As for Matt Jacobs, he foresaw no problems following his dad to the campus at UMass Lowell.

"I didn't feel any pressure coming here," he said. "I just wanted a chance to play, and this was a chance to play close to home.

"It is kind of cool," he added, "to look up and see the championship banner hanging (at the Tsongas Arena) and know my dad was a part of that team."

Now Matt Jacobs has his own legacy to create.