Santa Fe Honors Former Coach Cobble

Lonny Cobble stood next to the mound, his eyes never leaving the baseball in his hands as the public address announcer sang his praises.

The Oklahoma Christian baseball coach was, for a brief few hours, not wearing the OC maroon and gray. Instead, he was back in the familiar green and white of Edmond Santa Fe.

Santa Fe honored Cobble, its first baseball coach, Tuesday afternoon in advance of the Wolves’ home game against Westmoore. Cobble threw out the first pitch before posing with a banner displaying an image of a green number 0 jersey like the one he wore for 19 years.

The banner was then hung for display on the outside wall of the home locker room. At some point, Santa Fe plans to paint his number on the outfield fence.

No player or coach will ever wear 0 for the Wolves again.

Cobble said the day’s events were humbling.

“I just can’t believe they did it,” Cobble said. “There’s probably a lot of people a lot more deserving, but it’s an honor and I really appreciate them doing this. They didn’t have to… It’s just kind of been an overwhelming day getting to see everybody again. I just really appreciate it.”

Cobble came to the corner of W. 15th St. and S. Santa Fe Ave. when the school opened in 1993. Tasked with starting a program from scratch, he did more than give high school kids a chance to play baseball. He gave them a chance to play winning baseball.

During Cobble’s tenure, Santa Fe went 536-234 and made two state championship game appearances.

Cobble was 24 when Santa Fe hired him. He said his youth made the task of building a new program less intimidating than it should have been.

“I was still pretty young and excited and energetic,” Cobble said. “It was a lot of fun. These were some of the best days of my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

The idea to honor Cobble resulted from brainstorming between Santa Fe athletic director Andrew Rasmussen and baseball coach Ryan Phillips.

“He’s everything (to Santa Fe baseball),” Phillips said. “He started it. He built it. He designed the fields. He added to the fields. He’s fundraised for the field. He’s fundraised for the kids, and then obviously, he taught them baseball.”

Westmoore being the opponent against which the Wolves honored Cobble was no coincidence. The Jaguars’ coach is Andrew McGuire, who worked for Cobble as an assistant at OC before taking the Westmoore job. One of McGuire’s assistants is Cobble’s son, Zac Cobble, who once played for his father.

Cobble said it was awesome Santa Fe thought to do it this way.

“They didn’t have to,” Cobble said. “They could have just done it with anybody, and they didn’t. They wanted my son to be here, some of my former assistants. That just tells you the kind of people that are here. They’re good people.”

After nearly two decades, Cobble left Santa Fe in 2013 to take over the Eagles’ program. As of Tuesday, OC is 220-171-1 under Cobble. The Eagles are 4-3 this season after defeating Southern Nazarene Tuesday afternoon 13-6 in a game which had its start time moved up to ensure Cobble could make it to Santa Fe for the ceremony.

Cobble said he was not going to take the OC job at first, but his wife pushed him.

“She said, ‘You know, you’ve always wanted to do this, it’s a great opportunity and you need to just go do it,’” Cobble said. “She said, ‘You’ve earned it,’ which, I don’t know if I did, but I decided to do it and I thought, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to high school,’ but have had a lot of fun over there doing that.”

Coaching the Eagles keeps Cobble busy, especially during the season. That does not mean he is not still around the Santa Fe program. Cobble said he has tried to step back and not seem like he is watching over anyone’s shoulder, but Phillips said Cobble is always there when he is needed.

“He’s a mentor for me,” Phillips said. “Anytime I need something or, in my first year especially, I bounced a lot of ideas off him or just questions, and he’s always willing to help. That’s who he is. I’ve never actually heard him say no when somebody’s asked for help.”

Cobble said Phillips has done a good job with the program and has kept the momentum going. In 2019, Phillips was able to capitalize on what Cobble built when the Wolves won their first state championship.

As much winning as Cobble did, he said he wants his legacy at Santa Fe to be more than that. He said he wants to be thought of as a good person who took care of people’s kids.

“I hope they all grew as young men,” Cobble said. “We won games, but hopefully, we did it the right way. I wanted to win a state championship as bad as anybody, but I wouldn’t trade it all for the kids going to the colleges, the scholarships they got, the draft picks we had. I just really enjoyed my time here.”