Amber Jacobs
A short-for-her-age girl abruptly entered the choir room and sat herself next to me during our weekly practice at church. We were both 10.
“I have 63 brothers, ya know,” Amber said, her mischievous eyes sparkling as we met.
Responding with my usual nice manners, I said, “Oh!” (and thought, “You think you’re so cool”). That’s how my friendship with a pro basketball player began.
Amber Jacobs lived six years of her childhood in the men’s dorm at Baptist Bible College. Her parents, Roger and Dawn Jacobs, were the dorm parents while Roger was BBC’s soccer coach, so it only made sense for Amber to assume all of those guys were her brothers. Her grandfather, Ernest Pickering, was formerly the president of BBC, and her other grandfather, Jack Jacobs, was a longtime GARBC pastor. Little did Amber know that her connections would become meaningful in the future.
“My dad would take me to his games while coaching and carry me around as a baby,” Amber answers when I ask her when she first knew she loved sports. Though she was a natural-born homebody, Amber began living in the public eye at a young age—news programs, newspaper articles, magazine entries, even ESPN clips.
She didn’t live what most would understand to be a “normal” high school experience. While I spent my weekends at sleepovers and shopping at the mall, Amber was traveling with her basketball team or participating in games and practices. She became the all-time leading scorer on our girls’ basketball team, with Abington Heights High School retiring her jersey.
We were both members of Heritage Baptist Church in Clarks Summit, Pa. “I really started to grow in my relationship with God in high school youth group,” Amber says. As it turns out, God used our church to ground her in God’s Word and to give her the foundation that she would need more than anything in her later years in the spotlight.
“Call it naivety,” says Amber. “Up until sophomore year I always thought I’d just go to Baptist Bible College, where I grew up. I started getting letters from schools about basketball, and I had no idea I could go to college for free on a scholarship.” Given her career arch, perhaps this would have been more obvious to a person with less humility. Rather than emphasizing winning and personal statistics, her father (who was no stranger to winning as BBC’s soccer coach) had emphasized doing the best 100 percent of the time. Working hard came naturally to Amber.
After six years of friendship, the Lord led Amber and me to a sad crossroads. Boston College offered her a basketball scholarship and she had to leave home for the first time. Becoming a key player on that team, she was named an All-Big East selection and honorable mention All-American.
From there, God led Amber to the Women’s National Basketball Association. Talk about being in the public eye. In true Amber fashion, she continued to work her hardest, and earned a spot on the Minnesota Lynx, where she remained for four seasons.
I watched Amber live out her dream of playing in the WNBA—playing professional ball for three to four months a year, earning a great salary, being on TV, getting catered to, signing autographs, eating out constantly, traveling the world, and calling it a career. Yet Amber calls her time with the Lynx one of the hardest in her life.
“It was very rewarding to be one of few elite athletes as a pro getting paid for the game. But lifestyle, demands, and expectations were very difficult to balance,” Amber says. “You have everything, but so many people are still searching because it’s not fulfilling.”
By “fulfilling,” Amber means her long desire to serve God in some type of ministry. After spending a few years in the secular world of coaching at a Division I college, she became restless. Though she had opportunity to minister to the young women on her team, something was missing. That’s when Baptist Bible College contacted her about serving at the college where she long ago bragged of her 63 brothers!
Amber wants to use her new job to concentrate on “relationships that will be built, impacting young women, and wanting more of a purpose through coaching than just ball. A great part of me is defined by basketball, but BBC has an understanding of the total person that I am.”
Since Coach Jacobs has been taught such an outstanding work ethic, she no doubt will pass that along to her future teams. She says her goal is for the girls to “glorify God and feel His pleasure,” not so they have an attitude of “oh well, win or lose, we glorified God,” but that they build a tradition of success. She desires that win or lose, they will glorify God with grace, but that they will still win in the process.
“I’ll get to teach a game I love, but also impact lives through ministry,” Amber says.
Amber Jacobs
- Went to the Elks National Free Throw Contest at age nine
- Scored 1,000 points by sophomore year of high school
- Ended her high school career with 2,433 points; named Miss Pennsylvania Basketball
- Made game-winning shots in the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament (2003)
- Led Boston College to its first-ever Big East Tournament Championship (2004)
- Associated Press Honorable Mention All-American, WBCA Kodak District One All-American, All-Big East second team
- Wore #23 because both of her parents wore it at BBC
- Third round draft pick by the WNBA Minnesota Lynx (2004); played four years with the team
- Played a fifth WNBA year with the Washington Mystics and Los Angeles Sparks
Abigail Dubbe graduated from Baptist Bible College with a degree in communications/writing. She lives in Reston, Va.
Assistant basketball coach for the University of Toledo and University of Rhode Island
