Sport’s life lessons a natural for Jakubowski
HUNTLEY — To say sports and the Jakubowski family have been a good match would be an understatement.
Andy Jakubowski has coached baseball at the prep and junior college level for two decades.
Meanwhile, wife Michelle directs the volleyball program at Barrington High School while Taryn played soccer in college and assists at Northern Illinois University. Daughter Taylor, a volleyball standout for HHS’s 2019 squad, is a junior spiker at Seton Hall University. Jake is on the Heartland junior college team at Normal. TJ is a sophomore Red Raider.
The head coach is in his 17th year guiding players from the HHS dugout. The 2023 season could be a milestone one on two fronts, for Jakubowski, a 22-year prep coach, is 15 wins away from career victory No. 500 (485-315) and just 10 wins from his 400th at HHS (390-200).
A new baseball season is dawning for the Red Raiders head man Jakubowski, hopefully March 16 here against Grayslake North. He discussed some of his earliest memories of the sport, at the White Sox’s Comiskey Park to his coaching philosophies.
“I grew up at Belmont and Oak Park Avenue,” he said. “ I attended St. Priscilla for grammar school and played baseball at Shabbbona Park,” “Since we lived on the northwest side of Chicago, everyone was a Cubs fan. My dad became a White Sox season ticket holder in 1976 so some of my earliest moments were going to old Comiskey being carried on his shoulders when I was younger. We would go to a lot of weekend games along with missing school on Opening Day. Some of my favorite players were Bucky Dent, Harry Chappas, Eric Soderholm and Jim Morrison, to name a few.”
Jakobowski attended Gordon Tech for one year before graduating from Fremd High School after his family moved to Rolling Meadows. As the high school years continued, the “baseball lifer” began to pursue the next level, college ball. The chance came at Northeastern University from 1991-94.
“My ultimate goal was to play pro ball but I fell short of that dream,” he said. “Originally in college, I wanted to get Into broadcasting. I realized I didn’t have a face for TV or a voice for radio, I changed course and became a Secondary Education teacher in Speech and Performing Arts. I had a speech teacher in high school who helped me get over my fear of speaking in public. I hope that I can help my students do the same.”
Further on the baseball front, an infield coach, Isse Sopena, was also a guiding force.
“He took me under his wing in college and he was like a second father,” Jakubowski said. “The way he interacted with me made me a better player-person and that is what I try to do with our players at HHS. The reason I got into coaching was to help get as many players onto the next level as possible so they can get a quality education while playing the game they love.”
Jakubowski, also coached at Boylan Catholic, Jacobs and Elgin Community College’s national tournament teams. His first HHS season was an 11-24 record, but the Red Raiders broke through with a regional title in 2008-09, the first of nine total to date. HHS took fourth in the state in 2009-10 and reached its pinnacle with a runner-up run in Class 4A in 2017-18.
“The biggest obstacle we faced was trying to change the culture,” Jakubowski said. “The kids bought in immediately and obviously with the school growing, we became more talented. It took us four years before we became somewhat relevant and we finally made it downstate in 2019 for the first time in school history.”
Today, Jakubowski and the HHS players were happy to be outside, working on fundamentals at a side field near the HHS diamond.
“Ultimately the goal is to be playing our best baseball at the end of the season and to make a strong post-season run,” Jakubowski said of the 2023 season.
History is on the side of the Huntley diamond men.
