He played on the 1910 Brown team that defeated football powerhouse Yale, 21–0, and stopped Jim Thorpe's Carlisle Indians, 15–6.
[4] After graduating from Brown, High served as the head coach of the Wesleyan University football team in 1912.
[6] High's 1912 Wesleyan team also won acclaim for scoring against Yale in a close 10–3 defeat to open the season.
[10] High, who was a resident of Providence, Rhode Island, chose not to return as Wesleyan's head coach in 1913 after having "salary difficulties with the athletic management of the school.
[15] Despite the poor showing in 1913, NYU students expressed confidence that High had put the team on the right track as reflected in the following newspaper story from January 1914: "Speaking of supreme confidence, New York university students are fighting to keep Jake High, the football coach who piloted the team throughout a whole season without scoring a single point.