Sports

Since 1982, Jay has written historical sports features and columns for the national magazines of 36 men’s fraternities. In addition to Delta Tau Delta, his work regularly appears in the magazines and websites of Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Alpha Order, Phi Delta Theta, Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Nu and Sigma Phi Epsilon, among others. Additional writing projects have been done for the Southwest Conference (1994-96), Big 12 Conference (1997-2006) and the Texas Rangers baseball club (2004).

Jay has served as vice-chairman of the collegiate committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and has been a member of the Pro Football Researchers Association (PFRA) since 1982. He is also a member of the National Football Foundation, College Baseball Foundation, American Baseball Coaches Association and Fraternity Communications Association. Jay is also on the voting committee for the College Baseball Hall of Fame and a voter in the annual College Football Hall of Fame selection process.

His first major sports project was in 1980 as co-editor of Pro Greek, along with Jon Willlamson, later North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) Executive Vice President. The publication, a master list of several thousand fraternity and sorority athletes, provided a launching pad for Jay’s writing efforts for Greek organizations over four decades. In 1983, Jay self-published Across the Border: U.S. College-Trained Players in the CFL, a master list of more than 3,000 names compiled over several years with the cooperation of the Canadian Football League office and several of its teams.

Between 1985 and 2000, Jay wrote sketches of famous athletes for the Biographical Dictionary of American Sports series, edited by David L. Porter and published by Greenwood Press. Among athletes profiled were John Elway, Jim Plunkett, Bob Lilly, Raymond Berry, Dante Lavelli, Hank Luisetti, Randy White, Eric Dickerson, Mike Mussina and Jim Swink. He was also a contributor to College Baseball, a book by SABR collegiate co-chair Rick Benner and published by McFarland in 2006. He and Jon Williamson compiled the Famous Greeks in Sports and Arts section in the 1991 Baird’s Manual of American College Fraternities.

From 1989 to 1994 and 2000 to the present, Jay has researched and selected the All-Fraternity All-American Football Team. He also selects college All-American Basketball and Baseball Teams, with all the selections being announced on the NIC website at www.nicindy.org. Click on Press Room at the top of the home page and then find sports headlines at Greeks in the News or Greeks in Sports All-American lists, Halls of Fame lists, Olympic Medalists and other categories, including current Greeks in pro football and major league baseball. Readers of this website are invited to send names not on the NIC lists or nominations of current Greek collegiate athletes of note.

As an athlete, Jay played American Legion baseball; played fast pitch softball in the Air Force and 14 years of slow pitch softball in Dallas/Fort Worth leagues; spent a week in 1985 at the first New York Yankees fantasy camp in Fort Lauderdale; and pitched in Dallas/Fort Worth senior baseball leagues from 1988 to 1991.