Plainfield's Jacob Irons named Honorable Mention All-American collegiate sportscaster

Jacob Irons had returned home from South Bend, Indiana, in late May and was playing Scrabble with his grandmother when his phone started to blow up. He kept peeking at the phone, knowing he wasn’t supposed to look at it during the game.

“My family gets suspicious that I might look up words,” Irons said. “My grandmother wanted to know what was going on. I said I didn’t know. She said you better take a look.”

College broadcasters that he knew from around the country were sending him congratulatory texts. Irons had just been named an Honorable Mention All-American by the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America (STAA).

“I had applied months before and I wasn’t even thinking about it or following it,” Irons said. “My grandmother was like, ‘Oh my goodness, that is so good.’”

Since 2009, the STAA All-America program has recognized the nation’s most outstanding collegiate radio and TV sports broadcasters with first team, second team, third team and honorable mention All-America honors. The Jim Nantz Award is given to the most outstanding collegiate broadcaster. This year’s winner was USC’s Carlo Jimenez.

Irons, who just finished his sophomore year at Notre Dame, was one of 16 college broadcasters selected as honorable mention recipients.

“I was extremely happy about that because sometimes you listen to yourself and you’re like, ‘Damn, I don’t know if I'm getting good at this,’” Irons said.

Realizing a dream on Cape Cod

Irons’ broadcasting journey has taken him to Cape Cod. It’s where a whole bunch of All-Americans spend their summer, chasing their dreams every year among the sandy beaches, windswept dunes, shingled cottages, and landscaped baseball diamonds.

Irons is an intern for the Cape Cod Baseball League’s (CCBL) Hyannis Harbor Hawks. He is part of the Harbor Hawks nightly broadcast crew that includes collegians Mickey Doolittle (Missouri), Mychal Kersting (Maryland), and Brea Lassek (Northwestern).

“It has been an awesome experience,” Irons said. “I’m very fortunate for everyone within the Hyannis organization to afford me this opportunity to broadcast games and get to work on Cape Cod.”

There are 10 teams in the Cape Cod Baseball League and much like the players, who are some of the top Major League Baseball prospects in the country, each team's broadcasters are also aspiring professionals.

“This is the best of the best, both on the field and off the field,” Irons said. “The interns you get to work with are arguably going to be the biggest and brightest minds in the media.”

Growing up in Plainfield, Irons had always dreamed of broadcasting games on Cape Cod. He was well aware of the town’s connection to the Cape. It’s where Plainfield High teacher and Panthers longtime baseball coach John Schiffner became the CCBL’s winningest coach after a Hall of Fame career with the Chatham Anglers. It’s where Irons’ cousin, Travis Beausoleil, the former Mitchell College head coach who is the new athletic director at UConn-Avery Point, was a batting coach on Schiffner’s staff.

Seven years ago while vacationing with his family to see Beausoleil, Irons found himself in the press box at Harwich’s Whitehouse Field sitting between Mariners announcers Jake Eisenberg, now the radio voice of the Kansas City Royals, and Evan Stockton, a broadcaster for the Syracuse Mets (AAA). Someone gave Irons a headset. He was 13 years old.

When the Harbor Hawks visited Harwich earlier this season, it became a surreal moment for Irons.

“I’ve finally been able to achieve a dream,” Irons said. “Cape Cod has always been the goal.”

Game day preparation

Irons lives in South Dennis, about a 20-minute ride to Hyannis’ McKeon Park. His day is consumed with gathering relevant information for that night’s game, whether he is the color analyst or play-by-play commentator. He checks the daily box scores, learns about the comings and goings from around the league, especially after last week’s MLB Draft, and gets warning from the Harbor Hawks front office on what players might be activated.

Irons gets to the field four hours before game time to interview players and talk to the production crew about what kind of graphics they could use during that night’s broadcast.

“During home games there are a lot of moving elements working with the production team,” Irons said. “It’s pretty chaotic.”

Irons is loving every minute of it.

“The people behind the scenes are what makes this so special,” Irons said. “It really is a great group of individuals that they have assembled here. We’re working for the viewer to put out the best product we can every night. It’s a great organization to be a part of.”

The right fit in South Bend

Irons began pursuing his broadcasting dreams at Plainfield High School. He was the public address announcer at home basketball games. He covered the school’s games through his popular Panther Podcast on Instagram Live. He was the voice of Moosup American Legion baseball for four years. During the summers, he interned at radio station WINY (1350 AM). Last summer, Irons enjoyed an internship with the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s Mystic Schooners.

The “Voice of Plainfield Sports” had interest in a number of colleges during his senior year. Some of the schools (Syracuse, Fordham, etc.) were among the top broadcast journalism schools in the country. Irons chose Notre Dame University.

“I like to say it’s the best decision I’ve made in awhile,” Irons said. “It was everything I was looking for in a school and I didn’t even know I was looking for it. I have to give props to my principal, Christopher Bitgood, and my parents, who really pushed me along to go look at Notre Dame and see that it was a really good fit for me.”

Irons is a film, TV and theater major, while minoring in sports media and culture. During his freshman year, Irons traveled from South Bend to Syracuse to do football play-by-play for the school’s radio station. He is a director’s spotter for NBC during the Fighting Irish’s home football games.

As a sophomore, Irons became the lead voice on the digital side for Notre Dame’s women’s volleyball and softball teams. He works behind the scenes at the ACC softball tournament for the ACC Network. He also did play-by-play on the digital side for the men’s basketball game against Lipscomb.

“They put a lot of faith in me to do some big games and that makes it all the more special,” Irons said. “They trust me and give me a lot of opportunities to learn and grow, which makes it really valuable, especially early on as a college guy.”

More: Plainfield will be first CT school to offer AI course. Here's what they're going to learn.

Playoff push

Irons will return to Notre Dame after the final out of the Harbor Hawks season. He is hoping, however, to broadcast more big games this summer as Hyannis makes a push for a Cape Cod Baseball League playoff berth.

Irons is also looking forward to a visit later this summer from his parents, Lisa and Mark, and his sister Hannah, Plainfield’s all-state shortstop. The word "all-American" might even appear in the family's competitive Scrabble game.

“It was nice to know that someone else thinks you’re halfway decent,” Irons said. “It’s nice to get a little recognition from the work you put in.”

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Plainfield's Jacob Irons broadcasting games for Hyannis Harbor Hawks