Rick Cobia

Rick Cobia

Written by Patrick Brendel Friday, 10 October 2008

Rick Cobia has coached future NCAA football All-Americans, won a district championship and gone deep into the Texas high school playoffs several times.

Some of his former players are competing in the National Football League and Major League Baseball. One plays professional soccer in Europe. Cobia, Taylor High School’s athletic director and head football coach, lettered in football in college himself.

But if you ask him what his greatest achievement is, he will grin and say, “That’s a long story,” and then tell you about a student named Robert, who opened Cobia’s eyes without ever competing beneath the Friday night lights.

In 1957, Cobia was born in Sealy, west of Houston, and later moved into the town of Katy, where his dad painted houses. Although his parents never graduated from high school, Cobia lauds their work ethic and commitment to their children’s education.

His older sister, who is now a teacher, was the first in the family to attend college. Cobia was the second. His younger sister has worked for the same company since graduating high school, and his younger brother is a police officer.

At Sam Houston State University, Cobia walked on to the football team, worked 40 or more hours per week and took a full slate of classes. After graduating, he worked jobs at various junior high and high schools in the Houston area, steadily rising up the coaching ranks until gaining a position at the brand-new, class 5A Cypress Falls High School in a wealthy part of Houston. Still, something was wrong.

“I got caught up in this business with coaching and personal life. Succeeding is what it’s all about. Being No. 1. Beating the next guy. Win, win, win,” he said.

During the 1998 football season, a teacher pulled him aside and asked him about a kid named Robert who was one of the more than 200 students in a gym class Cobia taught.

“One day, a teacher asked me, did I know him and could I help him?” he said. “And I decided, yes, I know him. And yes (with reluctance), I’ll help him.”

So Cobia brought Robert home for dinner: Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, pecan pie and milk. As the family stared, Robert ate nearly everything on the table. After dinner, Robert accompanied Cobia to a football game.

“He ate two things of nachos and two things of popcorn and drank two big Diet Cokes,” Cobia said.

That night, Cobia drove Robert back to his home.

“A little shed that had four walls, no doors ... To see someone sleeping behind plywood because it cuts the wind. To see someone sleep on their own clothes because that was the cushion they had from the concrete floor. To see someone take a bath in a five-gallon bucket because that’s all they had,” he said.

Cobia was astonished — not just by the squalor in which his student lived, but that he had never noticed before.

“He had been in that high school for four years,” Cobia said. “And for four years I just basically walked by him. I took him for granted. I took all these kids for granted.”

But everything changed once he saw the way the kid from gym class lived. The Cobia family invited Robert into their home and worked for months obtaining Social Security benefits for the neglected, disabled teenager.

The community rallied around the formerly invisible child and held celebrations for Robert on his birthday and holidays. The school district fully supported Cobia’s efforts. The district’s social worker helped Cobia to negotiate government procedures successfully, securing free assisted living and medical care for Robert for life.

The next semester, Cobia left Houston to become the head football coach of Caldwell High School, and a coworker “graciously and willingly” took over caring for Robert, he said. After six years in Caldwell, Cobia sought out and won his current job at Taylor High School, where he has been for four years.

Cobia claims no special recognition for helping out his student. “Robert was the hero” for rescuing him from his own self-absorption, he said.

“He taught me the valuable lessons of what it’s like to be blessed, and what it’s like to be lucky. And what it’s like to receive, and what it’s like to say, ‘Thank you,’ and mean it,” Cobia said. “He taught me that food does taste good, and that a warm blanket feels good. And he taught me that saying, ‘I love you,’ means something.”

Cobia and Robert still talk on the phone on holidays, and occasionally Cobia gets to watch him compete in Special Olympics activities.

“We stay in contact, and he’s got a great outlook on life, and he’s so happy. And he’s got a great friend in Cy-Fair that takes care of him,” Cobia said. “ … So there is a happy ending to that story.”

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