When his bosses made Robert O’Brien ride shotgun to the corner of politics and nepotism, the Broomfield football coach took one glance at the neighborhood and did the only thing he could. He jumped from the dang car.
“I was removed for benching a quarterback who was the athletic director’s nephew,” O’Brien explained to me Monday at Empower Field, “and the district athletic director’s son.”
This was back at Citrus High School in Inverness, Fla., during the fall of 2019. Oh, and did we mention that his team was 8-1 over Coach OB’s first nine games when he was … removed?
Or that Citrus was cruising to its first playoff berth in six years? Or the ’Canes’ stellar record of 13-25 in the four seasons before O’Brien showed up?
“I was asked to move to a middle school 30 minutes away,” the first-year Eagles coach continued. “They said that if I wanted to stay in the district and stay in Florida, that was going to be the move.”
Instead, O’Brien threw open the passenger-side door and ran for the hills. Fans howled, and justifiably. An online petition at Change.org calling for his reinstatement landed almost 1,800 e-signatures.
Somebody else coached the playoff game. Which, of course, Citrus lost by 22 points. The ’Canes haven’t sniffed the postseason since.
“Welcome to Central Florida,” O’Brien chuckled.
The man’s 37 going on 62. Doubt him at your peril. Whereas Dave Logan turned up to CHSAA fall sports media day and towered over peers in terms of height and gravitas, O’Brien, with his cool demeanor and mop of dark, curly hair, looked like one of the dudes. The guy charged with defending the Eagles’ 4A state title cracked wise with his players at Empower Field with a vibe that felt more like an older brother than grizzled mentor.
“(He’s) honestly amazing,” offered Broomfield senior tackle Landen Davidson, a 308-pound Nebraska commit who’s built like one of those old “Masters Of The Universe” action figures. “And I feel like I can connect with (O’Brien) very well and I can tell him things and create that deeper bond with him. I really appreciate that going into my senior season. I need it.”
The Eagles need a little serenity. Their state-championship QB from last fall, Cole LaCrue, is slinging cheese curds for the Wisconsin Badgers now. Their state-championship coach from last fall, Blair Hubbard, was placed on administrative leave and resigned last spring after accusations of inappropriate communications with Broomfield students came to light.
“Our team (had) kind of found out from the school,” senior defensive back Brent Harris said of Hubbard’s departure. “And we were all just surprised. And just didn’t know what was coming next.”
Up next was O’Brien, a Louisville native who’d played at Monarch and was Hubbard’s defensive coordinator from 2016-18, having helped lead the Eagles to the state title game during his first season on the staff.
“Building (Broomfield football) from ’16 to ’18 was something that we felt like I was a part of,” O’Brien said. “So it was pretty easy to jump back in and say, ‘We’ve built this (program) — it wasn’t just one guy. We as a program, as a staff, as a community, we built this.’ So it was pretty easy to make that transition.”
So far, O’Brien — Davidson and Harris call him “Coach OB” — has managed to find the sweet spot between the familiar and the fresh. Most of the coaching staff is back. The upperclassmen have made it clear that the plan is to pick things up right where they left off, even going so far as to name-drop rival Erie, BoCo’s other 4A beast, during a Monday news conference.
“I think any time there’s going to be coaching change, there’s going to be challenges. Any time that a great coach leaves a program with a lot of success, there (are) going to be some differences,” O’Brien continued.
“Have we worked through some of those things? Absolutely. Will there be more things that come up? I’m sure there will. But we’ve got a phenomenal group of coaches. We’ve got a phenomenal administration. We’ve got wonderful student-athletes and the parental support has been absolutely unbelievable.”
And while Coach OB declined to get into specifics about what he and Hubbard have talked about since the former was hired, it can’t be any more awkward than the situation in Florida four years ago.
“I’m not going to lie to you: a lot of prayer went into that,” O’Brien recalled. “It was a really difficult time. I leaned on my faith more so in that moment that I ever have in my entire life. And it brought me back to coaching.
“And I still am in contact with a lot of those kids and a lot of the players from down there in Florida. As hard as it was, it was also a special experience for me to be able to develop those relationships and do some things that they had never done, (such as) having a winning season … Central Florida football is no joke.”
Neither is he.
“I’m that (BoCo) neighborhood type of kid,” he laughed. “And I know what that neighborhood type of kid is — hard-nosed, blue-collar, a little angry at times, a little physical, a little tough. And that’s the type of football that we play.”
The year after he was run out of town, Citrus went 1-7. Since the fall of ’20, the Hurricanes are 5-23. Robert O’Brien, meanwhile, is settling into the driver’s seat from a mile high. And climbing.
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