Jenn Jacobs was born for her career.
“I played sports from a very, very young age. I have memories of being on a basketball team at age 3 or 4. It was a coed basketball team, and I was one of the only girls,” says Jacobs, an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KNPE).
“So, I would just run up and down the court for every play, never get passed to, and never even want the ball,” she adds, “and my dad would come watch every game and finally one day he said, ‘You know, Jenn, you can touch the basketball.’ ”
Growing older did not diminish her passion for playing but did bring into focus a certain reality.
Neither her skills nor her stats were the kind that won games for her teams.
“Even though I had a huge love for sports, I was never the best at any of them. I was always the captain – coaches would say, ‘You get people motivated and bring people together’ – even though I wanted to be the star who was putting up the stats. But coaches loved me,” Jacobs says.
“Along the way,” she adds, “I figured out that I wanted to be nearby sports for a long time, but also that, ‘I’m definitely not getting a college scholarship anywhere. So what can I do to stay in this field?’ ”
Her answer came in a gift.
“When I was in high school, somebody gave me this signed book by a women’s college basketball coach: Pat Summit of the Tennessee Lady Vols. It was all about her formula for success, growing champion teams, and she talked about working with the sport psychologist,” Jacobs says.
“This book was written back in the ’90s, and it was the early 2000s when I read it, and I’m like, ‘WHAT IS THIS?’ Then I looked into sport psychology and found out it was this blossoming career field,” she adds, “and I knew, ‘I want to do that. Whatever it takes to get there, I’ll do that.’ It meant a lot of grad school – but I got there.”
Believe it.
Jacobs, who came to NIU in 2012 as a graduate instructor and research assistant in pursuit of her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in sport-based youth development, is now the first recipient of the new Dr. M. Nadine Zimmerman Endowed Professorship.
Zimmerman was a professor, chair, director of Graduate Studies and associate dean during her 34 years at NIU – “one of the leading women doing this type of work decades ago,” Jacobs says.
“She had a successful career,” Jacobs says, “and when I’ve met with her before, she told me that she wants to support faculty who are doing great things to keep NIU on the map as a strong institution.”
KNPE Chair Steve Howell confirms that.
“I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Zimmerman for her continuous support in KNPE,” Howell says. “Her generosity, along with numerous other faculty, alums and friends of the department, continues to pave the way for the many future successes of our students and faculty.”
SINCE STARTING IN 2016 as a visiting assistant professor in KNPE and officially joining the faculty a year later, Jacobs has continued her doctoral research and branched out into sport for social change, sport for incarcerated youth, and international sport for development.
With colleague Zach Wahl-Alexander, Jacobs designed, launched and continues to develop and manage Project FLEX, which since 2018 has provided positive interventions to youth in secure custody of the state.
On her own, she created a Engage Global initiative called Alternative Spring BAE and, in 2019, began taking students to Belize. Among the many goals were to foster social change through, and help others advocate for gender equity in, sport.
Last year, she joined Howell in accompanying students to Tanzania to help promote gender empowerment through sport by sharing best practices around engaging girls and women.
“Dr. Jacobs has become an internationally recognized scholar in the area of sport for development and social change, especially as they impact marginalized youth. Her efforts and initiatives, such as Project FLEX and Spring BAE, embody the spirit of the Dr. Zimmerman Professorship and make her the perfect person to hold this title,” Howell says.
“Moreover, Dr. Jacobs has an unwavering commitment to inclusivity, belonging, and innovation as she effectively blurs the lines between her teaching, research, community outreach and student engagement,” he adds. “We are excited to see her thrive in this role and to help move forward the amazing work taking place in the KNPE.”
Jacobs wouldn’t trade her “place” for any other.
“I’ve been really drawn to how sport can develop people’s full potential and not just their physicality. I figured that out when I was playing sports, it was making me a better student, making me a better friend and, hopefully, making me a better daughter,” she says.
“I loved the fact that you could practice real-life lessons in sport, and that it was the perfect metaphor for all the big moments in life. ‘Oh, I lost – but what does that mean about me and my self-confidence? How can I get over it and be resilient?’ I thought, ‘I want to figure out how to do that for other people.’ ”
Earning a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she thought her path would lead to working with high school athletes.
A second opinion surfaced during her master’s degree program at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, however.
“I figured out that I don’t care if a pro athlete makes their free throws or increases their personal record,” she says. “What I actually cared about was, ‘What are people learningfrom the sport?’”
Meanwhile, “because of my upbringing in Chicago, where I was exposed to different classes and races all in my backyard, I figured out that I have this special draw to people who are marginalized, and who just got dealt a hand that’s not fair, for no other reason than it’s just where they were born or who they were born to.”
“Being exposed to gangs in my neighborhood maybe desensitized me a little bit to that world – but then drew me to it,” Jacobs says. “In grad school, I started working with youth in gangs and figured out, ‘Hey, there’s something here with my sport psychology training, and passion for connecting with people from tough backgrounds, and I figured, ‘Why not put that together?’”
TEACHING IN THE Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education is the perfect venue for her to flourish.
“I teach college because it makes the world your playground. I can work with students. I can work with community partners, I can work with government officials, I can travel to different countries,” Jacobs says. “And that’s just my itinerary from this last month.”
“I am very confident that I don’t ever want a job other than a professor. You have so much autonomy to pursue the research that you’re interested in, and to do the community outreach that you’re passionate about,” she adds. “It took me a while to figure that out, because I don’t think many people grow up thinking, ‘I want to be a professor.’ But when I figured out that it really is waking up every day and deciding, ‘What project do you want to sink your passion into today?’ – I don’t think there’s a better job than that.”
Naturally, she commits to lifelong learning.
Part of that comes from daily interactions with NIU students, who she says teach her curiosity, challenge her with tough questions, and provoke her to ponder why they behave or think in the ways they do.
Another part results from “ebb and flow of students – different trends in what excites them, what they want to do for careers, and even what the new cool words are – and I feel excited by this. I want to ‘put my drip’ on this field.”
Her philosophy helps, too.
“Paul Wright – one of my mentors – talked to me a long time ago about taking down the classroom walls and making the world your classroom, and I always thought that was the coolest concept,” Jacobs says.
“I tell my students that this is a secret of college: The textbooks and the classwork are not the most important things here,” she adds. “I’ve gotten the fortunate opportunity to do things like FLEX and Belize, and to show my students that that’s the ‘real’ learning. It doesn’t come from taking exams. It comes from real-life experiences that shake you to your core. In fact, on my syllabi for classes under ‘Materials Needed,’ I put, ‘Your Real-Life Experiences’ and then ‘Textbook Optional.’ ”
That goes double for the professor.
She appreciates her opportunity to welcome new students to Project FLEX and to the Belize roster.
“I’m getting to relive and re-experience cool ‘firsts’ through their eyes for the first time. I’m watching students who have never been on a plane before go to another country, hear people speak Creole or Swahili and eat local dishes,” she says, “or I watch them step into a prison setting and see topics I teach in my sociology course like race, gender, and class come alive for them. It is really rewarding.”
Receiving the Dr. M. Nadine Zimmerman Endowed Professorship is also rewarding to her.
“It’s an affirmation,” Jacobs says. “I know the values of NIU, and they align with me and my work. I strive to exemplify what KNPE and the College of Education are trying to showcase.”
