By Mike White, February 3, 2017, post.gazette.com
Jake Livingston, Fox Chapel
The past week: Livingston had 22 and 19 points in victories against Woodland Hills and Penn Hills. The win against Penn Hills gave Fox Chapel a 16-1 record.
Check this out: Livingston is a 6-foot-5, 215-pound senior forward who has played a big role in making Fox Chapel one of the biggest surprise teams in the WPIAL. Livingston is averaging 16 points and 9 rebounds a game and has seven “double doubles” for the season, including three in the past four games. Livingston is a three-year starter and is being recruited by small colleges. His father, Russell, is a former Fox Chapel player.
This season is the best you have played personally. Why? I’d say a big part of it is just dedicating myself to the game of basketball. After last year, me and Carson Cohen were not happy with the mediocre year we had. I stopped playing football. He stopped playing soccer and we just worked on basketball all summer.
You’re a pretty big guy. Why give up football? I definitely have a passion for basketball and love it more. When I was a sophomore, we made a pretty good playoff run and I fell in love with it. I talked it over with coach [Zach] Skrinjar and my family. I want to play basketball at the next level, so I decided to give up football.
Honestly, would you admit you guys could have never expected to be 16-1 with two weeks left in the regular season? I want to say we believed it because I go into every game thinking we’re going to win. But I don’t know if we necessarily believed we’d be at this point. But’s a great start.
You know this year is the 40th anniversary of the last Fox Chapel team to win a WPIAL title? Yeah, 1977. Absolutely.
Is there a little karma there? I don’t know if there’s any karma, but we look up to that team. My dad told me there were a lot of guys from that championship team at our Penn Hills game [last Friday].
Isn’t your family good friends with the family of former Rutgers and Robert Morris coach Mike Rice? We go on vacation with their family every year and I usually go stay with them for a week or two after vacation. I work out some with coach Rice. I love it. He’s tough on me, but it’s a lot of fun learning from one of the best coaches in the game.
No throwing balls is there? [Laugh] No, of course not.