Lambert "Jake" Jacobs, a UF football player in the early 1950s, and his late wife Barbara. They met at UF, married in Gainesville, and remained together until Barbara's death in July. (Photo: Courtesy of Jacobs family)
True Living Legend: A Salute To Former Gators Football Player Lambert 'Jake' Jacobs
Friday, November 21, 2025 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — On the other end of the FaceTime call is a 94-year-old man with an amazing life story. He is at home in the Pinecrest area of Miami, resting in a comfortable chair. He has a twinkle in his eyes and a sharp memory.
Lambert "Jake" Jacobs worked until he was 81, was a successful businessman, and earned an accounting degree from the University of Florida in the late 1950s. He met his wife, Barbara, while at UF and the two married 68 years ago.
"Got married there right on 13th and University,'' Jacobs said. "It's no longer there, the little chapel."
Barbara Green Jacobs passed away in July, and on this November afternoon, Dirk Jacobs, Jake's son, has stopped by his father's place. Dirk and his sister, Jocelyn, are UF graduates like their parents.
"He and my mother were the inspiration,'' Dirk said.
Dirk recently reached out to Gators Boosters to let them know that Jake – that's what Lambert Walker Jacobs is called by his friends and family – has a fascinating story that few know and is believed to be the oldest living former UF football player.
Jacobs is also a U.S. Army veteran and is worthy of a salute, as the University Athletic Association honors members of the armed forces, veterans, and local first responders on Saturday during their annual "Saluting Those Who Serve" game against Tennessee. Jake Jocobs (Photo courtesy of the Jacobs family)
Part of Jacobs' story is detailed in a book published by his late brother, Art Jacobs, in 1999. "The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American Boy Betrayed by his Government during World War II" details the plight of more than 10,000 German-Americans during World War II. Jake's father and mother left Germany and moved to America years before the war broke out. Jake and Art were born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and were American citizens.
"They came over here for a better life legally and had him and his brother, and then everything else from there went on," Dirk Jacobs said.
When war erupted in Europe in September 1939, Jake's father, also Lambert Jacobs, complied with a government order as an unnaturalized German immigrant to register as an "enemy alien." That triggered a nightmare scenario four years later as the U.S. government ransacked the family's home in search of pro-Nazi activity.
The elder Lambert Jacobs, despite testimony from character witnesses and official recommendations that he not be interned, was arrested without formal charges or a trial, according to newspaper reports, and taken to a makeshift prison at Ellis Island. Eventually, Jake, Art and their mother joined their father there in miserable living conditions because they were rendered destitute by the loss of his income.
The Jacobs family was later moved by train to an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas, with Japanese, Italian and German internees. Once the war ended, the Jacobs family was sent back to Germany and held at Hohenasperg under the surveillance of the U.S. Army.
Jake and his brother, both American citizens, were released in 1946. Their parents were later freed and remained in Germany after the war. The brothers returned to the U.S. in 1947, with Jake settling with a farming family in Kansas that essentially adopted him. The family spent winters in Kissimmee, and Jacobs decided to remain in Florida one year when they returned to Kansas.
The decision opened a door to UF that Jacobs never imagined.
While enrolled at Kissimmee High, coaches urged him to come out for the football team.
"I had never played football,'' Jacobs said. "The first game I ever saw I played in."
Jacobs, a 170-pound fullback, suffered a fractured leg as a junior and missed much of the season. As a senior, he was a force for the Kowboys and made the Orlando Sentinel's All-Midstate second team.
Jacobs showed enough promise that his coach took him to UF for a couple of workouts. The Gators were impressed enough with his athleticism and toughness to offer him a scholarship.
A news clipping from the Feb. 25, 1951, edition of the Daytona Beach News-Journal. (Via Newspapers.com)
"I had interest from the University of Miami and Clemson,'' Jacobs said. "I never went to either one of them. When I went up to Gainesville, I said, 'This is the place I want to be,' because it was close to Kissimmee. I had a scholarship. I wouldn't have been able to go [without it].
"I gotta tell you, I learned right away about keeping my head down, because they showed you their forearms, and we had no masks. When I was there, Bob Woodruff was the coach. Never spoke one word to him while I was there. All he was interested in was the first-string players. I was not first-string."
Jacobs played on the junior varsity and practiced with the varsity. He was part of the 1951-53 teams, including the 1952 team that defeated Tulsa in the Gator Bowl for UF's first bowl victory. Future Gators head coach Doug Dickey was the quarterback, and future NFL running back Rick Cesares was the star player.
Far from a star player, Jacobs acclimated to his new life and team. But he was struggling in school and financially without family support.
"In my fourth year, I dropped out because my grades were so poor,'' he said. "When I came back, I went in on the GI Bill."
Despite his traumatic experience during WWII, Jacobs enrolled in the U.S. Army after leaving UF and served 21 months on Okinawa. When he returned to campus, he met Barbara on a blind date. Gators center Carroll McDonald, a former teammate of Jacobs, served as a groomsman at their wedding. He earned his accounting degree and took a job with a textile company in LaGrange, Ga., embarking on what would become a long and successful career in the business world.
Jacobs was transferred from Dallas to Miami in 1967 for work and has remained there ever since. He continued to make trips to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for Gators games as recently as 2008, watching the Gators beat Miami on the way to their last national championship.
He remembers a much different time and UF from what he only sees today on TV.
Lambert Jacobs is pictured with the 1953 Gators football team. (Photo: Tampa Tribune)
"They had wooden stadium seats,'' he said of his playing days. "They didn't have the upper decks. We practiced running up and down the concrete steps. There was no separate facility other than going over to the Florida Gym."
Lambert Walker Jacobs – Jake to those who know him – could be bitter about what happened to him and his family when he was a boy. He is not. He considers himself fortunate to have made it back to America and to have discovered his wife and future while at UF.
"It was just never a focus with him,'' Dirk Jacobs said.
Instead, Jake moved on and made a life. A good life. One that, at age 94, included an unexpected conversation about his days as a Gators football player so many decades ago.
"I practiced, but that was about it,'' he said. "I could hold my own. Back then, the larger guys were 225 pounds. That's what I wanted to be, but I could never get there."
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