SportsZone: Jake West

Still only a teenager, Jake West is many things.

Most recently, West became a Penn Charter graduate as a member of the Class of 2025. Not long before he received his diploma, he was named Mister Basketball, an award given to the best high school basketball player in the state of Pennsylvania that is selected by fans, coaches and members of the media.

Of course, West is a basketball player; he came to Penn Charter ahead of his junior year in 2023 from Archbishop Carroll, where he was already beginning to gain recognition as one of the top young hoopers in the area. In two years at PC, he was a two-time, first team all-league selection and was named Inter-Ac Most Valuable Player as a senior after averaging 18.2 points, 4.1 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.7 assists per game. West is also a champion, having led the Quakers to back-to-back league titles, including most recently the program’s first flawless 10-0 Inter-Ac season since 2004. 

West is a winner, winning 17 games as a junior and an additional 24 this past winter, and all of that success on the court – as well as in the classroom – has led him to his next role: a Northwestern University student and basketball player. 

West is also a social media influencer, with 1.6 million TikTok followers and another 258,000 on Instagram. These platforms are a glimpse of West’s life both on and off the court, a hybrid offering of basketball highlights and teenage silliness. West’s TikTok page features video after video of him lip syncing and dancing in front of the camera, sometimes with friends and others solo. The first video pinned to his page is of him dancing in his holiday-decorated living room along to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – light, joyful stuff that many others document and share on social media in a similar fashion. When West does it, though, the video racks up 11.7 million views and counting. Many of his videos have millions of views, while all of them are at least in the six figures. 

The online fame has brought ample attention – most of it good, some strange – into West’s life. He is, by his own definition, a brand of his own creation. In today’s world, there are immense monetization opportunities for successful influencers in the same way that there are for college athletes, who are now able to earn money on their name, image and likeness while playing in the NCAA. West’s own life has become a business of its own, as people are interested in what he’s doing even when he’s doing nothing at all. 

He is many things, but more than anything, Jake West is still authentically Jake West. A goofy, fun-loving son, big brother and friend to many, the social media fame has not changed him into an online caricature of himself. The version of West that millions see on TikTok and Instagram is exactly who he is when the cameras aren’t rolling. None of this is an act – West is simply having fun being himself, and landing at Penn Charter certainly helped him augment and harness his independence and self-recognition as a master conductor of his own sizable following. 

“I think it’s pretty cool to see what it’s become because I think it reflects on who I am as a person,” West said during an on-campus interview before the end of the school year. “I’m just really authentic, being myself and doing what I do. I’m just messing around doing my own thing; I haven’t tried to be like, ‘Oh, follow me and do this or do that.’ I think the way it’s been able to pop off this much is because people like my personality and the way I am. 

“Here (at Penn Charter), it’s cool how you can see everybody’s journey. Nobody really judges you. You just do your own thing and you get to meet a lot of cool people. It opens up doors and opportunities you wouldn’t have at other schools. It gave me a drive and determination to work hard in school.”

West’s high school years have been well-traveled. A native of Plymouth Meeting, he went to elementary school in the Colonial School District and completed his freshman year at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School (he split his basketball season between the JV and varsity teams) before reclassifying to the class of 2025 and redoing his ninth-grade year all over again at Archbishop Carroll, which offered stronger competition on the court in the famed Philadelphia Catholic League.

West spent two years at Carroll, starting most of his freshman season and becoming one of the program’s best players as a sophomore. It was at Carroll when he first forayed into posting on TikTok with one of his basketball teammates. A couple of their shared videos on the friend’s page went viral, prompting West to create his own profile and start posting under his own name. 

“We were just messing around, dancing,” he said, “and the first one went for like 100,000 views. Then the next one is a million, and we’re like, ‘Oh my God – wow.’ I was just having fun, doing my own thing and being who I am.”

Of course, being in the spotlight garners more prying eyeballs. When West played games on the road, a staggering number of students from whichever school he was playing showed up just to see him – not West the basketball player, but Jake the dancing teenager that they see on TikTok. Some opposing fans are adoring, while others will say nasty things to try to get under his skin. This has become a part of the Jake West experience, blurring the line between the basketball player and social media star. West can be both, but others sometimes have trouble distinguishing one from the other.

“At first it was definitely hard and a big change in my life,” he admitted. “By freshman or sophomore year, there were already half a million people following me and knowing who I was. I would get a lot of hate comments. Back then, it would definitely affect me, but my mom has raised me to do what I love and not care what other people think. 

“As I’ve grown up here at Penn Charter and gotten older, I just embrace it because it’s who I am. You can’t change who you are, so you might as well embrace it. If it’s not affecting the people that I care about in my circle, then I don’t care. It’s what I like to do, so what do I care about John or Tim or Phil on the Internet?”

At PC, West didn’t have to answer to anybody for who he was or who he was becoming. He found a community within the basketball program, which featured fellow transient newcomers in players Matt Gilhool and Jamal Hicks and head coach Brandon Williams, who had coached West on the AAU basketball circuit. He also found camaraderie away from the court, marveling at how different students and groups with varying interests mingled and overlapped so seamlessly. 

“I've had some friends that aren't on the basketball team that I wasn't close with in junior year that I got closer with at the end of senior year,” he said. “It’s just how special this place is – there are so many cool people you wouldn’t normally be friends with, and you get to see everyone [for who they are].”

West loves that he’s been able to play the game he loves at such a high level at a place that has enhanced his individualism while inspiring others. This is the stuff that will be lasting and foundational to who he becomes in college and beyond, regardless of how many social media followers he has or how much money he makes playing basketball.

“I thank my dad every day for helping me go to Penn Charter, because I got a great high school experience,” West said. “It was definitely a big adjustment, but once people got to know who I was, it got a lot better. Everything is really community-based at Penn Charter. They’re really big on being a team, working together, stuff like that. When I met the basketball team, it just clicked right away. We were able to flourish because we played selflessly and for the love of the team, not for our individual goals.”

Because of West’s chameleon-like skill to look like many different things at the same time, he can become whatever he wants to while he’s at Northwestern. He wants to play basketball for as long as he can at the highest possible levels, but whenever that ends, he said he’d love to be a sports agent and help clients develop their own personal brands, much like he’s already done for himself. He’s also interested in fashion/clothing and continuing to sharpen his own social media reach to inspire kids to become whatever they want to by being their authentic selves.

– Ed Morrone OPC '04