Live Oak’s Cobbie Jones trying to turn a senior season ended by
injury into hope for the future
Morgan Hill – When Cobbie Jones heard the results of her MRI, she couldn’t digest what she was hearing.
Stress fracture. Left tibia.
“I was just in disbelief,” said the Live Oak senior. It was February and Jones was just weeks into the track and field season, the season that was to be her swan song before moving on to track and field powerhouse UCLA in the fall. “I said, ‘There’s a mistake. You need to look at it again.'”
But then Jones saw the MRI for herself, saw the blood pooled around the injury in her leg.
“Then I knew,” she said.
Just five meets in, Jones senior track season was over.
Gone were the dreams of finally winning the longed-for state title in the 800-meter race. Leading up to the season, Jones had gotten close to glory at the California Interscholastic Federation State Track and Field Championships. She finished ninth as a freshman at Los Gatos High, fourth as a sophomore in her first year at Live Oak and sixth as a junior. Her times dropped every year, falling from 2:20 to 2:15 to 2:12 by her third appearance.
This year was supposed to be Jones’ year. Over the past two seasons, Jones – the happy-go-lucky blond pony-tailed girl who always sported a smile – had become the face of Live Oak track and field. Just before track season started, her times were faster than her preseason marks had ever been. Additionally, a good chunk of a very fast Central Coast Section 800 field had graduated, including 2005 state champion Libby Jenke of Menlo and ninth-place finisher Alicia Follmar of Saratoga.
But while the state’s best in the 800 prepared themselves for Friday’s state meet prelims at Cerritos College in Southern California, Jones was at home in San Martin, trying not to think about what she was missing.
For the first time in her successful career, Jones didn’t want to have anything to do with the sport she loves.
“I’ve never not been there,” said Jones, sitting at her dining room table on the day of the state meet. “I didn’t watch any big meets (this season). If I can’t be there, I don’t want to know about it. It’s really painful.”
Like Someone “Jabbing a Knife Into My Leg”
Jones tried to hide the pain that pierced the inside of her left shin whenever she ran. Despite the pain, the senior was running a solid early-season time of 2:18 in the 800.
By February, however, she couldn’t even make it through warmups at practice.
“When I would put weight on it, it felt like someone was jabbing a knife into my leg,” Jones explained. Picking up her leg to follow through on her stride caused additional pain.
Even with her injury, Jones won early Tri-County Athletic League meets. But it was in a dual meet with Gilroy that her dad, who lives out-of-state and saw her compete this season for the first time, realized the injury needed medical attention.
“I tried to hide my emotions,” said Jones, who feels she could have saved her season if she had stopped practicing when the pain didn’t subside a few weeks earlier. “Even when I walked around school, I tried not to limp.”
Jones even hid her injury from one of the people she’s closest with – her mom, Diane Urban. Urban would ask her daughter how she felt when she got home from practice. Jones told her that everything was fine, that all she needed was ice and some Advil.
The doctor’s prescription was the one Jones dreaded most – no running. She was relegated to crutches for two weeks before starting pool workouts, for which Jones would commute to Los Gatos High several times a week.
Jones’ goal was to be able to compete in the TCAL Finals, which took place May 13. But when she started to run again, the pain returned. It was then that the senior had to make the decision to forego the rest of her season and focus on getting healthy for UCLA.
“I would have made it to CCS and I think I could have gotten my times down for the state meet. But I don’t think they would have been what I wanted,” said Jones, who didn’t want to compete at a level less than her best.
Jones took another couple weeks to let her leg heal and says now it feels “just like the other leg.” The senior, whom Live Oak High honored as its female athlete of the year last week, is back training every other day, running, swimming and working out on an elliptical machine. She says she’s at about 50-60 percent of her top shape.
A Lesson Learned
If Jones has learned anything from the difficult season, it’s how to take better care of herself.
“I think I needed a wake-up call,” Jones said. “I wasn’t listening to myself. There’s no excuse for that.”
She’s learned the difference between hurting from training and hurting from injury. Her diet is better – doctors told Jones she wasn’t eating enough to keep up with the rate her body was growing. As a freshman, Jones was 4-foot-8. She is now 5-foot-8 and a half. Even with her busy schedule, the senior said she makes sure she’s snacking enough and takes calcium vitamins three times a day. She now knows that taking care of herself will allow her to get back to her passion.
“What I ache for the most is competition and practice,” Jones said. “I’m really looking forward to getting down to UCLA. I’m going to be at the back of the pack, which is what I wanted. I wanted to have girls I look up to.”
Through her whole ordeal, Jones said her future school and future coach, Eric Peterson, was helpful and supportive. Jones made a commitment to the storied Bruins program in the fall, before she was injured.
“I don’t know what would have happened had I not signed,” she said.
The time-off from track has allowed Jones to dedicate more time to her other love – horses. She was selected by a local member of the California State Horsemen’s Association to show a nationally-competitive horse at the Pinto World Championships in Tulsa, Okla. in a few weeks.
After that, she’ll be focused on heading to UCLA in August. And taking the lessons she’s learned with her.
“It’s just something I’ve learned a lot from. It makes me appreciate when I’m healthy,” Jones said. “I just want to run so bad. It’s like my passion. It makes me feel really good inside.”
