Charleston Gazette, March 13, 2009

Gobel takes Nitro football job

By Rick Ryan, Assistant Sports Editor

Bob Gobel, a name familiar to football fans up and down the Kanawha Valley, has been appointed as the football coach at Nitro.

The 53-year-old Gobel replaces John Sowards, who stepped down in December following a 3-7 record in his first season with the Wildcats.

"This is a job I always tried to get,'' Gobel said Thursday. "It's really kind of a perfect fit, because I teach in the community at Cross Lanes Elementary. Some of those kids I'll have on the team [at Nitro] I've known since they were 6 years old, which is kind of neat.

Photo: M.K. McFarland

Bob Gobel worked at Andrew Jackson Middle School in 2004.

"I've always thought it's a good situation to be in, with the type of players you have, and the support you have from the community as well as the administration.''

It might be easier to list the places where Gobel hasn't coached in the Kanawha Valley rather than the other way around. He's worked at the middle school, high school and college level.

A few highlights:

· He had two stints as head coach at then-West Virginia Tech, including a 7-3-1 mark in a one-year stay in 1989 that gave the Golden Bears a share of the West Virginia Conference title - their first in 40 years - and a berth in the NAIA playoffs. His quarterback was Scott Tinsley, the former Nitro coach and current WVU Tech coach.

· Gobel worked two seasons as head coach at West Virginia State (1990-91), going 7-6 in the WVC and 10-10 overall.

· He coached with Corky Griffith at Salem College in 1985 when the quarterback was Jimbo Fisher (now the offensive coordinator at Florida State) and a graduate assistant named Rich Rodriguez was on the coaching staff.

· Gobel coached two years at Countryside High School in Clearwater, Fla., and in 1996 took that team to the 5-A playoffs for the first time in the school's 16-year history.

· One of his first jobs came as an assistant on the staff of George Washington coach Steve Edwards Sr., and he coached there in 1982 on the school's only Class AAA state championship team.

· He also famously jumped into the Kanawha River after an October 1994 game as a promise to his players at Tech, who snapped a 36-game losing streak that afternoon. Tech went 1-39 in his second stint from 1992-95.

Gobel has also coached at Van and Sissonville at the high school level, and Andrew Jackson Middle School. The last few seasons, he's served as offensive and defensive line coach at Hurricane High School.

"I've been around a long time, and I've coached with a lot of guys in the Kanawha Valley, no doubt about that,'' Gobel said. "I know just about all of them.''

Between coaching jobs, Gobel has also worked as an insurance executive and sold cars and modular homes.

"Then I realized one day,'' Gobel said, "that the reason I was unhappy is that I wasn't around kids. Then I started teaching and coaching again.''

Gobel credits Nitro assistant coaches John Painter and Johnny Johnson for "keeping things going'' with the team's weightlifting program and offseason conditioning. Gobel expects to hit the ground running during the three-week approved practice period in June.

"Defensively, I see us doing a lot of things similar [to what Nitro has done],'' Gobel said, "and offensively, even though it's unusual for an old lineman like me, I like to throw the ball around, too.

"It's an infusion process where you start and build it up as well as you can, and have a program built from the ground up. We want to take care of the young players and get them involved as junior varsity and freshman [players], and then roll them into the varsity scenario. We want to build the program to the success that it's had in the past.''

Nitro won a Class AAA title under Robert "Little'' Burdette in 1998 and lost in the state finals in 2005 under Tinsley.

"I don't intend going anywhere else,'' Gobel said of his nomadic past. "I'd like to coach 10 more years.''

Gobel said he thought of a quote from former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz Thursday when his hiring became official. Gobel worked at Notre Dame's football camp four summers when Holtz was there.

"He said, 'The best day of a football coach's life is the day he gets the job,' '' Gobel said. "You haven't made anybody mad yet, and you're undefeated.''

Other head coaching assignments approved at Thursday's Kanawha County school board meeting were Stephen Vanhoose (George Washington softball), Joyce Midkiff (Nitro softball) and Katheryn Barr (Nitro boys and girls tennis).

Reach Rick Ryan at 304-348-5175