Before he even donned the Wildcats’ jersey, Northwestern University freshman Jake West had already captured the attention of 1.6 million TikTok followers.

“It all started as a simple joke with my friends after school,” West explained. “It wasn’t even on my account initially. We just started going viral, and I thought maybe I should create an account and share my own content. I never imagined it would grow to this, but here we are.”

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West added, “Most of my videos are spontaneous and natural. They show me having fun, dancing, and just being myself.”

Wildcats Head Coach Chris Collins learned about West’s online fame through his daughter. “My 18-year-old daughter was the one who told me. She said, ‘Dad, did you know Jake has around 2 million followers? He’s kind of a big deal.'”

“Back home, people recognized me a lot because I was local,” West noted. “But here, it wasn’t as common at first. Now that I’m settling in and playing well, I’m starting to get noticed more.”

“Jake is focused on his basketball career above all,” Collins remarked. “The social media fame seemed to come out of the blue for him. He’s embracing it now, but his true passion is being a basketball player.”

“I want to stick with basketball. Basketball is my first love. Growing up, that’s all I wanted to do was play basketball. And, like I said, that social media stuff kind of just came as a joke, and on the side, naturally. And I definitely didn’t feel like I would get to this point, you know, having millions of followers, but I think it’s cool, ’cause I get to show that I’m a basketball player as well, and what I like to do. And I think I’ve been able to build such a cool fan base because I had different avenues in my life that people like to see,” West said.