Approximately 34,844 students are enrolled at Brigham Young University. About 0.0002% of them are Jewish, including its quarterback, Jake Retzlaff.
Retzlaff is one of seven Jewish students at the premier Mormon institution, according to Hillel — and he’s the big man on campus. Through 10 games, he has thrown for almost 2,300 yards, tossed 19 touchdowns, and led the Cougars to a nearly-untouched loss column. BYU is in the running for its first conference championship since 2007, and ESPN’s Football Power Index gives the team a 39% chance to reach the College Football Playoff.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. When the junior college transfer from Corona, California, arrived in Provo in 2023, it was as a backup. A midseason injury invited an opportunity that Retzlaff harnessed, but he couldn’t salvage a downtrodden BYU team at the tailend of a bad season. Ahead of its 2024 campaign, BYU was viewed among the Big 12’s biggest punching bags and Retzlaff one of the conference’s weakest QBs.
The uniqueness of Retzlaff’s story has thrust him into the national spotlight. Who can resist the Jewish quarterback clawing the Mormons back to gridiron glory?
A Jewish sports foundation
Jake’s father, Steve, coached football for 25 years, much of that time spent at Claremont McKenna College. His mother, Maxanne, coached tennis at the consortium between Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Pomona Colleges for 20 years. His brother, Reggie, was the QB’s top target at Riverside City College in 2022, and is now a star wide receiver at Colorado State University Pueblo. His other brother, Daniel, is a standout pitcher and linebacker at Centennial High School.
Sports run through Jake’s blood. So does Judaism.
He’s the son of two Jewish parents, referring to his mother as a “Brooklyn Jew” to Deseret News earlier this month. The player self-identifies as a Reform Jew and had a bar mitzvah.
“My family is all practicing Jewish, particularly my mom,” Retzlaff said in 2023. “I had a bar mitzvah and am a member (at Temple Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Pomona, California) of a congregation. I love my Jewish journey.”
Retzlaff holds it down as the only Jewish person in the BYU locker room. He knew what he was getting himself into. It’s nothing he hadn’t experienced – growing up, he and his brothers were the only Jewish athletes in his town. It’s a role he watched Julian Edelman exemplify on TV as a child.
The only Jewish Super Bowl MVP was a key figure in the 2010s New England Patriots dynasty, and he did so without shying from his Jewishness. Retzlaff took notes.
“It is fun to see that he is proud of his religion,” Retzlaff said of Edelman, “so I can be, too.”
The Jewish quarterback told the Associated Press that being at BYU has actually made him more in touch with his Judaism because he is surrounded by people who are devout, which encouraged him to become more passionate about his Jewishness.
“I came here thinking I might not fit in with the culture, so this will be a place where I can just focus on school and football,” Retzlaff said. “But I found that, in a way, I do fit. People are curious. And when everybody around you is so faith-oriented, it makes you want to explore your faith more.”
Retzlaff proudly exhibits a Star of David necklace at press conferences. No part of him is hiding his Jewishness, perhaps in part for the situation’s novelty.
Before he became the first Jewish starting quarterback in BYU history, Retzlaff relished what doing so could mean. To be outwardly Jewish was always the goal.
“It is 100% something I have a lot of pride in, being a Jewish quarterback at BYU,” he said in April 2023. “It is going to be kinda fun to show a face to the world that is Jewish, because you don’t see a lot of Jewish athletes in college football, or even in the pros.”
Jake Retzlaff’s rise
When Kedon Slovis suffered shoulder and elbow injuries in BYU’s early November clash with West Virginia last season, Retzlaff was thrust into the spotlight. The 5-3 Cougars exited Morgantown with a 37-7 beatdown, but the substitute shot caller had a nice outing in a pinch: 210 passing yards, 24 completions on 42 attempts, and a rating of 97.1.
Not bad for a hurried FBS debut years in the making. Retzlaff’s senior year at Centennial High School in 2020 was canceled courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic, which stunted his college recruitment. In 2021, the quarterback took the next step of his career at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, where he led the team to a near-perfect season, recording more than 3,300 passing yards and 23 touchdowns in just 12 games. That performance catapulted him to Riverside in 2022, where he lit opponents up for almost 4,600 passing yards, 44 touchdowns, and a 63.3 completion percentage. Retzlaff again brought a team within one blemish from perfection.
Retzlaff soon became the top-ranked JUCO quarterback in the nation, attracting interest from University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State, and University of Hawaii. But it was different when the three-star prospect heard from BYU, which had monitored him since his time at Golden West.
The QB knew some of the reality of going to BYU. His best friend in high school was a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, and that exposure gave Retzlaff an idea of what to expect. According to his father, the young football star isn’t a drinker or smoker anyway, and he encouraged his son to take on the challenge. What BYU was offering was worth minor life adjustments.
“We are a football family, so with BYU’s history, we did not need to go research it. We knew about them,” Steve Retzlaff said in 2023. “When Jake was first contacted by BYU, I immediately said, ‘That’s Quarterback U. That is as good of a place as any. I am not sure there’s a better place to be recruited to for you, for your skillset as a quarterback.’”
In Jan. 2023, Retzlaff committed to Brigham Young. The offer came with no guarantee of a starting job. His initial fight was for second on the depth chart against Cade Fennegan. He asserted himself as the top backup through spring workouts, then patiently waited behind Slovis for the majority of the season. When circumstances thrust him onto the field, he was ready.
“Jake battled. He played hard,” BYU head coach Kalani Sitake said after Retzlaff’s unveiling. “He threw the ball with great velocity and accuracy. I thought he made a couple of mistakes, but the effort was there and the energy. He never quit.”
Retzlaff finished out the year as BYU’s signal caller as the Cougars failed to win another game the rest of the season. The competition for the 2024 job was wide open heading into the spring and remained tight weeks before the first kick off. Retzlaff beat his challengers, but little was expected from him or his team for his second season in Provo.
It didn’t take long for Retzlaff and the Cougars to demonstrate their improvement to the world. An early 18-15 over since-undefeated Southern Methodist University on Sept. 6 was the first warning sign, followed by a beatdown of No. 13-ranked Kansas State, 38-6, two weeks later made the quarterback and his team impossible to ignore.
The momentum hasn’t stopped. Retzlaff has thrown for more than 200 yards in all but two of BYU’s 10 games so far this campaign, tossed the fifth-most touchdowns of anyone in the Big 12, and quarterbacked the Cougars to their first win in Salt Lake City against hated rival University of Utah, 22-21, since 2006. Now 9-1, tied atop the Big 12 standings, and ranked No. 14 in the College Football Playoff Rankings, Retzlaff’s BYU has become a national story.
Support from the Jewish community
When Retzlaff came to Provo, he connected with local Jewish community leaders. One was Rabbi Chaim Zippel of the Chabad of Utah County, which he founded two years ago. In Dec. 2023, the organization held its first public Hanukkah event, and Rabbi Zippel invited Retzlaff to speak.
“He was our highlight, and the message he delivered was that people around the country, since the October 7 attack (in Israel), are unfortunately being forced to hide their Judaism,” the rabbi told the Deseret News in early November. “And Jake, to say he didn’t care (that Jews are being forced to hide) is an understatement. Jakes wears it so proudly.”
Days after landing on campus, Retzlaff self-titled himself the “BYJew,” a nickname that has since expanded from local to national fame, particularly after the Kansas State game.
Zippel attended that contest – his first BYU game ever – to show love for his fellow Jew. After the win, he took a picture with Retzlaff showing off a shirt emblazoned with “BYJew”. Thousands have sold since.
“It has been crazy,” the rabbi said. “It has almost become a full-time focus for me. It has been nothing short of amazing.”
Proceeds have gone toward supporting the county’s Jewish community, but the T-shirt sales have also raised awareness of the versatility of Jewish people.
“It is remarkable,” Rabbi Zippel said. “In the Jewish community, we don’t get a lot of sports heroes to look up to. And I think that Jake is aware of that, and he has done everything he can to work hard and put his head down, and to not take anything for granted, to pave the way for other Jewish kids living in small communities … to look up and say, ‘Hey, I can do that, too.’”
Retzlaff is giving Jewish people something to latch onto. He’s also bridging the Jewish and Latter-Day Saints worlds, illustrating what can happen when we disregard artificial barriers. Jews, Mormons, and football fans alike across America have heard his message.
“The world is a better place when we are just positive with each other, and so that is all I can be, is super positive, in every aspect of life,” Retzlaff told a reporter from the Jewish Journal after BYU’s win at Central Florida on Oct. 26. “When it comes to the global lookout on conflict, if we were just more positive, the world would be a better place. And if we just understood each other, it would be better. That’s all I try to do, man, is be positive. Just bring people together. Bring the LDS community and Jewish community together.”
Originally Published Nov 19, 2024 10:40PM EST
