ALLIANCE, Ohio — Elijah Cobb’s first love is still basketball. But the 2018 Mansfield St. Peter’s graduate still has room in his heart for track & field.
Room in his heart — and springs under his feet.
Cobb, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Mount Union — who went to the NCAA Division III institution to play basketball — decided to compete in the high jump this season for the Purple Raiders.
After watching him clear a 2021 then-national best 6-9 1/2 in his third meet of the season on April 10, it’s likely Mount Union veteran track coach John Harmon is glad Cobb opted to take his talents outdoors this spring.
It’s the first time the 6-1 Cobb has high jumped since he soared 6-4 to place eighth at the high school state track meet for the Spartans in 2018, the first male athlete in school history to medal at the meet.
“I came here to play basketball,” Cobb said Monday. “That remains my first love. I wanted to dedicate myself to just basketball for at least the first couple of years.
“This year, I knew I could manage both,” said Cobb, who earned All-Ohio honors in hoops during his senior year at St. Peter’s, averaging 18 points, 6.5 rebounds and five assists a game for the regional finalist Spartans.
His college friend, Tanner Slack, who also plays basketball and high jumps for the Raiders, helped convince Cobb to join him leaping over the bar this spring.
His return began slowly by Cobb’s own lofty standards.
“When practice started, I was only going 6-0, 6-2,” he said. “During the first meet, I went 6-4. I went 6-5 in the second.”
UMU jumping coach Andrew Milhoan, an All-American for Mount Union in the heptathlon in 2014-2015, worked on Cobb’s form — and also his mental game.
“To me, it was too slow a process. But Coach Milhoan and everyone convinced me I was going well and it was just take some time,” Cobb said.
It all came together in the third meet of the season on April 10 when Cobb cleared 6-9 1/2, besting his friend and teammate, Slack, by half an inch.
“I felt like I had a big jump in me,” Cobb said. “I knew that since my senior year in high school I have gotten strong, gained strength in my legs and my overall body. I didn’t know I was capable of 6-9 1/2, but I knew I was capable of much more than 6-4 or 6-5.”
He credits Milhoan for the rapid improvement on a team filled with great jumpers. The Raiders recently took the top six places at the Ohio Athletic Conference Elite Meet.
“It took some time to get my form back, to get my groove back,” Cobb said. “I have a great coach. He definitely is a big part of this. He tells me in practice what do do, I do it, and I immediately see the difference.
“He saw things I really didn’t see in myself,” Cobb said. “He told me I have the hardest thing, which is the jumping ability. But he talked to me about bending my back more, getting my hips up. He taught me all kinds of tricks and gambles, shooting videos of me in practice and showing me what I was doing wrong.
“He really knows what he is talking about,” Cobb said.
Cobb has now qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championships May 27-29 at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C. Ironically, it’s the same college attended by his older brother, Marquez Cobb.
“It’s real concidental,” Elijah Cobb said. “He will never be able to see any of my meets, like my parents are able to do. It’s just ironic that the biggest meet of the year is the one he will get to watch.”
Cobb also credits his parents, Yamica and Mark Cobb of Mansfield. His dad returns the credit.
“In our home as parents, we have a quote for both of the young men that we have had for years. ‘It is our responsibility as parents to put both of you in the best possible position for you to become successful. But then upon that transpiring, it then becomes your responsibility to make the best of the position that we have placed you in,'” said Mark Cobb, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.
“My wife and I are extremely proud of both of our children. But this is Elijah’s moment, for which we are grateful and humbled by,” Mark Cobb said.
Cobb, who is majoring in business administration, plans to continue flying high in the business world after graduation. He plans to own his own businesses, starting with a hotel, to help take care of his family.
“I have loved hotels since I was a kid,” he said. “We stayed in them during AAU basketball tournaments, vacations … I love them and I really want to own one myself. I want to own my own barbershop, just like my dad, and I want to own a business that mows lawns in the summer and clears snow in the winter.”
When asked where he plans to operate his businesses, Cobb’s faith-based roots emerge.
“I will go wherever my job takes me, more specifically where God takes me. I don’t know what God has planned for me, where he wants me to go. I will let Him guide me in the direction I need to go,” Cobb said.
