COMMENTARY: Easygoing Noble has priorities in order

This was Coronado vs. Liberty this past Friday. It wasn’t for Sir Herkimer’s Bone — that was Rancho vs. Las Vegas on the other side of town. It wasn’t for Merlin Olsen’s Cleat. That’s Eldorado vs. Chaparral. It was just two pretty good teams playing football on a sultry Friday night.

Liberty won, 35-29. In other words, it was a defensive struggle, at least by today’s Las Vegas high school football standards. Prep football has changed since my era. First off, the helmets aren’t made of leather anymore. Second off, today’s teams sure do throw a lot of forward passes.

(When I was in high school, there were three things that could happen when teams threw forward passes, and two were bad. This would have been when Darrell Royal was coaching at Texas. Most games were scrums between the tackles, with final scores of 6-0 or 12-6. High school soccer was just getting started during my day. We didn’t have field-goal kickers, and PATs were rare.)

There was a 96-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter Friday night.

I had decided to walk the Coronado sideline, because they were the visitors. There were fewer people over on that side of the field. Less security, too. I had forgotten my sideline pass.

One of the Coronado assistant coaches walked with a slight limp. This was Brian Noble, a volunteer defensive assistant. Noble looked somewhat familiar. He played nine seasons in the NFL, started at linebacker for the Green Bay Packers for eight of them, from 1985 through 1992. So he basically began his career trying to tackle Walter Payton, and finished it trying to tackle Barry Sanders. This would explain the slight limp.

When I was in high school, the assistant coaches weren’t former NFL stars. They were usually biology teachers, or guidance counselors, or guys who operated the machine shop during fourth period.

One of the other Coronado assistants was Mike Cofer. Cofer played in the NFL, too. He was the San Francisco 49ers place-kicker from 1988 until 1993. He has two Super Bowl rings.

The assistant coaches didn’t wear Super Bowl rings when I was in high school, unless they were from the Public League and they had a cousin named Vinny. Then it’s possible they could have worn a Super Bowl ring that was fenced or stolen.

Every time the Coronado defense would come off the field, No. 54 and No. 55 would seek out Noble for advice. These were Coronado linebackers. According to my “program,” which was a tiny blue slip of paper with names and numbers running down either side, No. 54 was Corey Sobczyk, whose surname resembles those in my high school yearbook. No. 55 was Wyatt Bartle.

They soon were joined by No. 3, Dakota Brunger, and No. 8, Jason Warren. There weren’t many guys named Dakota when I was in high school.

It seemed everybody on defense wanted a little advice from Brian Noble, and wouldn’t you, if your position coach spent nine years in the NFL trying to tackle Walter Payton and Barry Sanders?

There were two cool things about watching Noble coach football. For one, he wasn’t all intense, didn’t shout at the kids and whatnot. There’s way too much of that in high school sports these days. I only heard him raise his voice once, and that was after the replacement officials missed a false start.

The second cool thing was when I walked off the field with him at halftime, he seemed pretty easygoing, at least for a guy who spent nine years in the raw-meat world of the NFL. He had grown up in Southern California and played college football at Arizona State, so perhaps that might explain the easygoingness.

He smiled, and we shook hands.

Then instead of following the Coronado kids to the locker room to help with the halftime adjustments, he made a left turn to where the convertibles transporting the Liberty homecoming queen candidates were rolling to a stop in front of the grandstand. An attractive blond woman ran up to greet him. This was Noble’s wife, Cindy. He introduced me to her, too. And then to their pretty daughter, Alexis — Lexi — who was in the Liberty homecoming court.

Brian and Cindy Noble have four kids, and they are all girls. Sometimes it just happens that way.
Lexi wasn’t named the homecoming queen but she didn’t seem to mind. I kidded her dad about throwing the red challenge flag, and he kidded about demanding a recount. And then all three Nobles hugged and kissed each other on the cheek on the 40-yard line.

Inside the locker room, the Coronado players still were going over their halftime adjustments. I thought it very cool that Brian Noble, who spent nine seasons in the NFL, seemed to have his priorities in order.

Not less than five minutes later, when I investigated where that wonderful charbroiled hamburger aroma was coming from, Lexi Noble brushed past without noticing me. She already had changed out of her homecoming things. She appeared to be headed toward the shadows, where her friends were socializing and hanging out under the Friday Night Lights.