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great basketball mind. He was revealing that he could combine his zeal and talent for coaching with the ability to teach and lead young men. He had the right bal- ance and toughness needed, particularly with younger people. Brother Jobe was laying the foundation for a coaching career that would elevate him to the status of an iconic basketball coach, recognized as one of the great college coaches in America, a mentee of the universally revered Tennessee State University coach John McClen- don. Jobe guided Southern University to multiple Southwestern Athletic Confer- ence championships. Brother Jobe was on the road to being mentioned among such legendary coaches as Clarence “Big House” Gaines, the legendary coach at Winston-Salem State University, John Thompson, former head coach of Georgetown University, John Cheney, former head coach of Temple, Mark Cardwell, West Virginia State College, Hall of Fame coach George Raveling, and Nolan Richardson, head coach at Arkansas. Jobe coached eight teams over a span of 31 seasons, winning at a 61 percent rate. A builder of downtrodden programs, and accumulating 524 victories. But his longest tenure of 12 seasons was at Southern. In two stints with the Jaguars (1986-96; 2001-03) in which he coached such notable athletes as Avery Johnson and Bobby Phills, Jobe had a 209-141 record, perhaps none bigger than the Jaguars’ 93-78 shocker in 1993 over ACC champion Georgia Tech in the NCAA tournament. The No. 13 seed Jaguars, the last of the 64 teams admitted into the tournament, fell behind by 15 points in the first half, then came roaring back against the Yel- low Jackets, coached by his old friend and ex-co-staffer as assistants at South Carolina under the legendary Frank McGuire. “I feel bad for this team,” head coach Bobby Cremins said of his vanquished Yellow Jackets, “but I do want to con-
gratulate my good friend Ben Jobe. To me he’s always been the equivalent of a John Thompson, a Bobby Knight or a Dean Smith, and if I was going to lose to anyone, it was great to lose to a person like Ben Jobe.” Jobe coached the Jaguars to four NCAA tournaments and one NIT berth. His Southern teams won three regular-season SWAC championships and four tournament titles. Jobe had a reputation of fast-break basketball, which he adhered to throughout his career. He learned at the knee of pioneer and his mentor John McClendon at Tennessee State, who in turn learned the strategy from James Naismith, the game’s originator at Kansas in the 1930s.
“My philosophy was 93 shots a game, and try to score with eight seconds, upbeat tempo all the way, 94 feet of offense,” Jobe explained. His impact on basketball is reflected in the presenta- tion of the Ben Jobe Award, which annually goes to the top minority coach in Division I basketball. Brother Jobe was a basketball man, certainly, but a man of so many other talents and interests, a man who kept those passions alive. This high achiev- ing Brother is part of the history of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, worthy of sharing with members of our fraternity and the rest of the world. Brother Ben Jobe was always impec- cably dressed and always intensely passionate about social and political issues. According to Southern Uni-
Publishing achievement for more than 100 years
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