Bucky learned about toughness in college

Published 9:00 pm Monday, July 19, 2004

You look at him, all 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds with that big, bad, bald head, and you think, nobody would ever be so foolish as to trade fisticuffs with Bucky Jacobsen.

Then you find out, oh yes, they would. It happened in college, Lewis-Clark State, in Lewiston, Idaho.

It wasn’t a bar bash or a back-alley brawl. No, just two big guys pounding one another in a boxing ring for three one-minute rounds.

It was part of L-C State baseball coach Ed Cheff’s method of finding out who his mentally strong guys were.

“I boxed both years I was there,” Jacobsen said. “You matched up with a guy who was about your size. My junior year they had a guy who was bigger than me, Tyler Borup, who was like 6-6, 270, and I was only 220 at the time, and they weren’t going to let him fight.

“I told Ed, ‘I’ll fight him.’ That was a mistake because he whupped my butt. He couldn’t knock me down, couldn’t knock me out, but he beat me around that ring for three straight minutes.”

His senior year, Jacobsen matched up with a different guy, but the results were the same.

“A wood chopper from Idaho,” said Jose Rijo-Berger, Jacobsen’s teammate and still his best friend. “He knew how to fight.”

The fights were staged right before Christmas break. “So everybody goes home with black eyes and stuff,” Jacobsen chortled.

That was just one way Cheff had of testing a player’s mettle. Another was no-rules basketball. Lock the gym door, fold up the bleachers, choose up sides, toss out the balls and let ‘er rip.

“That was fun,” Rijo-Berger said. “Ed really wanted to find out what kind of kids he had in the bottom of the ninth inning, if they were mentally tough enough to survive.”

If a kid could pass those two tests, the Hill run must have seemed like a snap. It was seven miles to the top of Lewiston Hill, an excruciatingly severe challenge even to slightly built runners – I know. I did it one year in a 10k race – let alone 6-4, 220-pound giants.

“Ed always believed that mental toughness was the single biggest factor for team success,” assistant coach Gary Picone said. “It’s what separates the good teams.”

And Cheff doesn’t produce just good teams. He produces great teams. Like 13 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) championships, as well as numerous professional players.

If not for the rigorous training he underwent at L-C State, Jacobsen firmly believes he wouldn’t be in the major leagues playing for the Mariners today.

“If it weren’t for Ed Cheff and (former assistant) Chad Miltenberger, I wouldn’t even have gotten to rookie ball,” Jacobsen said. “They taught me how to play the game, the absolute basics of the mental side of the game.

“I had to toughen up a bit, I had to take it as a battle. You’re going out there, you’re going to battle against some guys trying to prove you’re not good. They’re trying to take money out of your wallet and food off of your table.”

And nobody, but nobody, would ever want to steal food off Bucky Jacobsen’s table.

It’s the lessons he learned in the ring, in the no-holds barred basketball games and on the Hill runs that taught him to persist when faced with adversity. And don’t think there hasn’t been some. You don’t spend 71/2 years in the minor leagues without some misfortune.

Sometimes it can be injuries. Sometimes it can be politics. Sometimes it can be just being on the wrong team at the wrong time.

“Ed taught me how to never give up, just control what you can control, go about your business, be the first there and the last one to leave everyday,” Jacobsen said. “And if you’re meant to be in the big leagues, you’ll be in the big leagues.”

A few years ago, when he was in the Milwaukee Brewers’ organization, Jacobsen felt he was headed for the big time. Then he broke a wrist when he ran into a tarp chasing a foul ball. The Brewers traded for designated hitter/first baseman Richie Sexson and that squelched any hope Jacobsen had of making the majors with them.

“Little things like that,” the Oregon native said, “that, when you’re looking at them from the business side, you’re looking at how they’re making business moves that affect your career. Sometimes, it just feels like they’re putting roadblocks up in front of you. But that whole mental toughness thing that Ed taught me just came back ten-fold. I wasn’t going to give up, eventually someone was going to notice and it worked out better than I could have imagined. I’m playing in my back yard.”

And he’s playing remarkably well. After three games, he had hit two home runs, had driven in five runs, had scored four runs and had reached base 10 times.

And if there’s anyone out there thinking Jacobsen is a one-week wonder, his old friend has some advice: think again.

“A lot of people are saying (he’ll only have) ‘a cup of coffee’ (in the bigs),” Rijo-Berger scoffed.

He’s got news for ‘em.

“He’ll be in the big leagues 8 to 10 years and have a successful career. He’s so far ahead of some of these guys mentally.”

Thanks to a tough old coach who taught him baseball and boxing.

One better than the other.