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  • SouthWest Edgecombe Cougars head coach Raymond Cobb, left, talks with his friend and Tarboro Vikings head coach Jeff Craddock at the jamboree Friday in Tarboro.

    Coach Cobb & Craddock.jpg
August 15, 2012

Coach Cobb to retire after season

Correspondent Van Holland

TARBORO — PINETOPS – SouthWest Edgecombe Cougars head coach Raymond Cobb may be called a football legend by some, but he has definitely been called a good friend and great mentor by other coaches throughout Edgecombe County.

Cobb will be entering his 25th season as a head football coach in Edgecombe County this year and has put up some impressive numbers throughout his career. Going into this season, Cobb has a 247-72 overall record and has won two state championships while he was the head coach at North Edgecombe.

After this year, Coach Cobb will hang up the whistle and call it quits as the head football coach at SouthWest Edgecombe and will retire.

"I have enjoyed my coaching career because I don't come out here for me it is all about the kids," Cobb said. "I just love to coach. I love being on the practice field and I definitely love Friday nights."

Going onto the practice field this season, Cobb said he doesn't feel any different then the first time he took the field as a head coach. Cobb has continued to coach and has been so successful because he has a few things he has continued to follow throughout his career.

He says he isn't out there for himself, he is on the field for the kids that are in his program. And when his team loses a game on Friday nights, the players win the games and the coach loses the games.

"I told a young coach that if he wants to be in this business he has to accept the fact that players win games and coaches lose games," Cobb said. "That is just how it is - it is the way it is."

Cobb said throughout his career he feels like he is the lucky one, because he has coached so many good players and has had the opportunity to coach with a lot of great coaches.

Cobb doesn't have any goals set for his final journey this year. He just wants his team to play hard and be as good as they can be and whatever the result is will be fine with him.

"I have just been so blessed as a football coach," Cobb said. "I just feel so lucky."

Cobb felt like last years team was the most enjoyable year he has had, because it was a joy to coach those kids. Even though his team went 4-7 he enjoyed every part about that team, because they worked hard everyday at practice and never gave up.

When it comes to friendships Cobb and Tarboro head coach Jeff Craddock have a great friendship. Since coming to Edgecombe County to coach, Craddock has looked up to Cobb as a person he could count on if he needed an answer about football or anything else. The two have become great friends on and off the field. Even though the two teams are county and conference rivals, you will see them talking before games when they are facing each other.

"Coach Cobb is a great friend of mine and a great guy," Craddock said. "I wouldn't be the coach I am today if it wasn't for him allowing me to pick his brain. I respect him tremedously."

Craddock has even been to visit Cobb at his home to talk to football. Craddock has sat down with Cobb on many occasions and ask why does he do things the way he does on the football field. Early on in Craddock's coaching career he would go and watch how Cobb would run his program during big playoff games and said he learned a lot from that.

"He told me anything I wanted to do I could when I went and watched his team practice," Craddock said. "I had a clipboard and would walk around and take notes on how he ran his practices."

When coach A.B. Whitley was coaching under Cobb, he gave Craddock permission to speak to Whitley about different defensive schemes.

"All Coach Cobb had to do was to say no you can't speak to my defensive coach but he didn't," Craddock said. "He let me talk to Coach Whitley about defense."

Cobb thought about retiring after last year, but said he couldn't teach his football players during the second semester of the school year and get them faster and stronger and just walk away from them.

"Football is the vehicle to society for these young males," Cobb said. "I just like being there for these young men and teaching them right from wrong about certain things."

Now after this season the journey will finally come to an end and one of Edgecombe Counties most experienced and well-known coaches will hang up the whistle and retire from coaching.

 

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