As head football coach at Lake View High School in Chicago in the 1950s, Ray Jacobson led a team that was undefeated for three seasons.
Yet his winning record on the football field was nothing compared with the success he had in shaping the lives of young men, according to his former players.
“He was demanding, organized, prepared, physically and mentally tough and challenging in a positive way,” said John D. Hanson, an attorney in Madison, Wis., who played on Mr. Jacobson’s undefeated teams from 1954 through 1956.
“He led young men from disparate backgrounds with varied ability to high achievement as a team. Years later, what I came to realize after I had life experiences, is that he wasn’t so much coaching football as he was coaching life,” Hanson said.
Mr. Jacobson, 82, of Hudson, Fla., and formerly of Chicago, died Sunday, Nov. 6, of Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home in Delta Health Center, Tampa. He had taught and coached at Lake View and Steinmetz High Schools in Chicago.
For Dr. David Schurman, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, the coach was like a second father, he said.
“He was someone you could trust and someone who gave you excellent guidance,” Schurman said. “If all people were like him, the world would be a better place for his fair-mindedness, his interest in excellence and his warm relationships with those people he was teaching.”
During his career, Mr. Jacobson’s teams had a record of 92-26-11 and won 12 division titles. In April, he was inducted by the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame and in September, teammates throughout the years came to Lake View for an assembly to honor him.
“He had high standards, and we didn’t want to disappoint,” Hanson said. “He gave everybody a fair shot. If you performed, you got to play. If you didn’t, you sat but you were taught to improve.”
Born in Scott City, Kan., Mr. Jacobson’s family moved to Chicago when he was 3 years old.
“And he grew up on the Hawthorne Elementary School playground in the Lakeview neighborhood,” said his wife, Jeannine, whom he married in 1948. “He loved that place.”
After he graduated from Lane Tech High School, where he played varsity basketball, he attended Northwestern University before enlisting in the Navy.
During World War II, he was stationed at Great Lakes. He returned to Northwestern after his discharge in 1947. But he transferred to Augustana College, where he received a degree in physical education in 1950. He earned a master’s degree from Northwestern in 1956 by attending classes at night.
He worked at Bowen High School for a year and then joined Lake View High School in 1954, where he was athletic director.
It was at Lake View that he took his teams from lower divisions to the highest, his wife said.
“He was a motivator,” she said.
He left teaching to become supervisor of swimming for the Chicago Board of Education’s Bureau of Health, Physical Education and Recreation from 1968 to 1972.
“Then he decided he would rather be back with the kids,” his wife said.
He taught physical education and coached football at Steinmetz High School before retiring in 1982.
He and his wife moved to Marco Island, Fla., but lived in Arlington Heights during the summer. In retirement, he learned how to play tennis and helped his team win the U.S. Tennis Association title in Florida.
Other survivors include a son, David; two daughters, Jan Abraham and Judy Brennan; and two grandsons.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday in St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 205 N. Prospect Ave., Park Ridge.
