Jess Settles Announcing Success Result of Hard-Working Approach

Former Hawkeye Attacked Playing Basketball, Farming Same Way

No one worked harder than Jess Settles on a basketball floor.

“I don’t know that anybody ever outworked him,” said Tom Davis, who coached Settles at Iowa. “He was just so unselfish. He’d work hard for all the right reasons. He wasn’t doing it to get himself glory. He was doing it to make the play to help his team.”

Humility and hard work remain a trait today, even though a bad back extinguished his basketball dreams. And Settles, 47, is still excelling at the sport.

When he’s not helping out on the family farm near Winfield, Settles is working as a television basketball analyst. He’s got more than 30 games on his schedule, most of them for the Big Ten Network. He’s also working a handful of Big East and Mountain West games for FS1. 

“My heart belongs to the Big Ten,” Settles said. “But in any business you get out and harvest as much as you can.”

He’s learned to channel his enthusiasm over time, and he’s become very good at a difficult job that feels like a homecoming of sorts.

“I love being in the arenas,” Settles said. “I love the stories of the kids, the coaches, the traditions, all those things. At the same time, I’m trying to point out the things that maybe the fans don’t see or recognize. And I think you get better at that with experience.” 

Davis is still a Settles fan every time he tunes in.

“It’s fun to hear him talk about the game as an announcer,” Davis said. “It brings back how hard he worked to make it happen.”

Settles got the most out of his athletic ability on the floor, making him one of the nation’s top forward prospects at Winfield-Mt. Union High School. He signed with Iowa, and took the Big Ten by storm. Fate played a role in that.

The plan was to have Settles back up Chris Street in 1993-94. But that all changed when Street died in an automobile accident in January of 1993.

“Coach called Chris Kingsbury and I in a couple of weeks before the season and said, 'You’re going to have to play heavy minutes, we have to rely on you,’ ” Settles said. “I was kind of overwhelmed by it. So to have a successful year, with everything in front of me, it was everything I ever dreamed of.”

Settles was named the league’s freshman of the year in 1994 after averaging 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and shooting 57.4 percent from the field.

One day that season, practice had ended and I was visiting with Davis in the tunnel at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. At the other end of the floor, Settles was working on a pump fake and power move. Over and over again.

“Just look at him down there,” Davis said. “That’s why he has a chance to be good.” Settles played most of that season with a painful case of shin splints, which left an impression on him.

“I know that any time it can be over,” Settles said. “If that does happen, I don’t want to say I wasn’t playing very hard at that moment.”

Those turned out to be hauntingly prophetic words. By the time Settles was a first-team all-Big Ten selection in 1996, his back was a hot mess. He entered the NBA Draft and attended the pre-draft camp in Chicago, but his back limited what he could do.

“That was really a brutal time,” Jess recalled.

He returned to Iowa, but played only three games in 1996-97, none in 1997-98 and 28 in 1998-99. He finished with 1,611 points, 747 rebounds and a world of what might have been.

“Back then, you were always worried about blowing out a knee and ruining your career on a dunk, or getting undercut,” Settles remembers. “I never dreamed it would be a slow death with a miserable back.”

Working as a television analyst has proved to be the perfect tonic of Settles, a way to stay in a game that he’s had a passion for since he was a youngster.

“I love being a part of the game in some capacity,” Settles said. “It keeps me around the gym a little bit. I love promoting the Big Ten, hyping kids up, trying to stay positive about the coaches.” 

It’s really no surprise that Settles has walked into the world of journalism. He loved chasing the written word back in the day.. He wrote a weekly column, called “Above the Rim,” for his hometown newspaper in Winfield.

“I loved the sports media from the time I was young,” he said. “And I always thought that would be part of my future if it ever worked out.”

Game preparation is no longer pump fakes and power moves. It’s film work, research and delivery. Settles relies on his experience as a player, as well as his two seasons as the head coach at Iowa Wesleyan.

“Just to get inside the mind of a coach,” Jess said. “It’s different than a player. Especially those last four to five minutes minutes to think, “OK, what would I do here? And coaching a couple of years, you mess a few things up enough and you learn and figure out what everyone else is thinking.”

Settles also leans on preparation. To get ready for last week’s Penn State-Indiana game, Settles spent 10 hours breaking down tape and reading up on the teams.

“You probably only use 20 percent of what you study, because things are changing and flying so fast,” he said. “When you do have the time, you try to really present a quality product.” 

Settles knows that being an analyst is walking a fine line. Every game has a winner. And a loser. 

“As an analyst, you can’t just sugarcoat everything,” Settles said. “You have to put out the good and the bad. It’s a tough part of the business, being critical. But you have to.” 

Davis, who witnessed Settles’ preparation as a player, recently saw that trait is still part of his DNA.

Settles did a Rutgers game when the school’s 1976 Final Four team was bring honored. That team was coached by Tom Young, who once worked with Davis at Maryland. The two are good friends. Settles reached out to Davis to get Young’s number, then called the former Rutgers coach to talk about that season as part of his pre-game preparation.

Davis watched that game, and was impressed with Settles’ finished product. 

“He did it in a way that made Rutgers fans proud of the history and yet he didn’t make anyone look bad,” Davis said. “He has a good way about him, of trying to bring positive things out. He can talk about negative things in a positive way.”

There is part of this television gig that basketball didn’t prepare Settles for. 

“I’m to the point now, since I’m a TV celebrity, where I have to dye my hair because the grays are coming in,” Settles said. “I’ve got hair dye in the bathroom. I’ve got makeup. I’ve got eyeliner. It’s out of control. I have more product in there than my three daughters. It’s embarrassing.”