For Cerritos College alumnus Andre Cobbs Sr., the cornerstone of his success has been helping others.
“It’s not always that you do things for yourself, sometimes you do things for other people because they need help.”
After excelling on the track and field team as a Falcon in 1982, he went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in physical education at Cal State Los Angeles.
Cobbs’ athletic talents eventually led to him being a world-class trainer.
He has more than 460 clients and 120 of those participate in sports overseas.
“My training isn’t any training people have ever done. I’m not like any Bally’s or 24-Hour Fitness. It’s crazy. It takes two months to get out of preliminaries and, that’s not even the first level.”
His price range runs from $5,000 to $20,000, three to four days a week for six months depending on which category, the client falls under.
While the training may be intense, Cobbs has never had a client quit on him.
“I don’t take those kinds of people. My success is based off of people who do well,” he said.
He was on the basketball team when he was in the U.S. Marine Corps and had a chance to participate in an exclusive Armed Forces tournament.
At the tournament, he was selected as one of the twelve best basketball players in all four branches of the military.
This twelve ultimately became the elite team of the Armed Forces, known as the Schism Team, that played all over the world in countries like Spain, Italy, Japan, and Korea.
Bob Klappinburg, the former assistant coach for the then-Seattle SuperSonics coached the Schism Team to the Pan-American games in 1982.
He has also played on numerous basketball levels, including the Joe Wheatley Summer Pro-Am, Loyola Marymount Summer Pro-League, and Canadian Basketball Association.
After his playing career was over, he began coaching in the American Basketball Association, International Basketball League, West Coast Professional Basketball League and the Long Beach Summer Pro-league, where under his coaching; his team was the only three-time champions.
Cobbs set a school record in the triple jump in 1984 and it still stands.
He said, “I broke it twice in the same, in sweats! It wasn’t really a good day for me either.”
Sophomore Karlin Stewart participates in the triple jump for Cerritos’ track and field team and he is currently chasing Cobbs’ 26-year-old record of 51-feet-1-inch in the triple jump.
“It’s an honor to meet him,” he said, “It’s good to see the marks ahead of you and set goals to beat the record but I’m trying to go beyond it.
Stewart has six meets left this season. So far, he has reached 49-feet.
Cobbs currently works out at Aurora Hills/Calabasas Community Center by playing basketball with NBA legends such as, Mark Jackson, Byron Russell and Michael Cage, in addition to having his own gym.Only adding to his list of activities is his participation in hosting events for the Los Angeles Adventist Academy, a three-year-old Seventh-day Adventist school for K-12 students.
“That school puts out kids that go to Harvard and other Ivy League colleges and you wouldn’t even know it just by looking,” he said.
Cobbs also contributes to Operation Tulong USA Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit humanitarian organization that helps to foster education and support institutions of learning in the Philippines that is based in Glendale, Calif.
Founded by Manuel Calpito, the foundation’s founder and president, OTUSA’s goal is to provide vocational training to non-skilled, unemployed individuals and to facilitate the communication among people.
OTUSA also operates a fully-functioning television station on the internet called Internevision.
Internevision aids the foundation in that it helps raise awareness to helping those in need to expressing the opinion of a minority without a voice.
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