Remembering Coach Jacobson

Recently, the Beloit Daily News published an article celebrating former Cuba City coach Herman L. Jacobson. While he was only here for a few years, and those few years happened to be over one hundred years ago, Jacobson's contributions to Cuba City's athletic program are worth noting.

Mt. Horeb native H. L. Jacobson became a faculty member at the Cuba City High School in the fall of 1921, right after graduating from Whitewater State University. In addition to overseeing school athletics, the Cuba City News-Herald reported that Jacobson taught the following courses during his brief tenure: civics, general science, commercial and industrial geography, economics, bookkeeping, physical education, physiology, hygiene, and sanitation!

He also jumped right into his coaching duties and, despite his young age, achieved a great deal of success. While several sources give Jacobson credit for starting Cuba City's football program, the high school's first team was actually founded the year before his arrival, when local businessman Frank C. Florine organized and coached the squad in a short, three-game season in 1920. Florine stayed on to assist for the second season and, on October 28, 1921, the local newspaper reported that "Coach Jacobson, by indefatigable labor, has built up a gridiron machine that is making them all sit up and take notice. The boys haven't lost a game and have run up a score of 122 to 0 out [of] the three games already played this season."

Jacobson coached basketball at Cuba City, as well, and sports editor Jim Franz reported in his Beloit Daily News article that he had this to say about the experience: "I had guys on the team that were older than me, but that was no problem. I was a pretty sharp guy and I could handle it. Besides, I was better than any of the guys on the team." That confidence seemed not misplaced because, during the 1922-23 season, Jacobson's team went 11-4 and made the school's first trip to the state basketball tournament in March 1923.

This team photograph of Coach Jacobson with his 1923 winning team was published in the Tri-County Press on February 12, 1970. Courtesy of LouAnn Nystrom.

Leading successful football and basketball teams would be accomplishments enough for any coach, but in the spring of Jacobson's first year at Cuba City, he also led what may have been the school's first track team. On April 21, 1922, the Cuba City News-Herald reported that he and "several of the boys fixed up a field for track work." A few months later, Jacobson would accompany Cuba City high school discus and javelin thrower Robert Nelson to the state tournament, where he secured first place in the javelin.

H. L. Jacobson's career did not last long in Cuba City, and it appears that he departed before the start of the 1923-24 school year. His successes in high school athletics would continue through his 24 years of coaching. He moved on to Monroe and then Milbank, South Dakota, before settling in Beloit for the remainder of his career. Jacobson's successes earned him inductions into UW-Whitewater's Athletic Hall of Fame, the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame, and the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the Beloit Memorial High School athletic field bears his name.