Handball - 1990

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 and doubles championships (with Marty Decatur) six times--singles in 1955-57, 1960, 1964-65. In 1960 and 1965, he captured both the singles and doubles crowns.

He also won the National Three-Wall championship three times. He did not compete in the Na-tional Championships several years because of health/injury problems or the lack of mean-ingful competition.

In 1966, Sports Illustrated Magazine wrote: "Jacobs might be the greatest athlete of his time in any sport.”

The nephew of legendary fight promoter Mike Jacobs (Joe Louis' promoter), Jimmy acquired a number of boxing films in his youth, and even-tually collected and owned the largest treasure of boxing films in the world. In the 1970s, his company, Big Fights, Inc., added boxing management to the administration of its extraor-dinary film library, and guided the careers of a select group of champions and top-ranked contenders. At the time of his untimely death in March, 1988, Jimmy was manager of World Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson.