‘If anybody earned it, he earned it’

The tragic, tragic story of Jacie Cochran is now well-known and well-documented.

The wife of Cashion coach Cale Cochran, Jacie gave birth to their firstborn child on July 2, 2020, but lost her own life in the process.

Said Cashion head football coach Lynn Shackelford of the fateful day: “It’s one of the worst days of my life, so I can only imagine what it was like for Cale.”

Jacie was just 26 years old and her obituary appeared in the July 8 edition of this newspaper.

Exactly one week prior, the obituary for my grandfather - John A. Mitchell of Dover - was printed on our pages.

My grandfather lived a full life of 85 years.

His passing was imminent and he was ready to do so at home, but instead had to drift away alone in a hospital bed in Oklahoma City awaiting the results of a COVID test that never came.

He died on June 26, some 50 miles away from my grandmother, his wife of 66 years.

On the very next day, a young man by the name of Dillon Mitchell saw his life come to a completely unexpected end.

Dillon was only 25 years old and was my cousin, also the grandson of John A.

In two days, my grandmother lost her husband and a grandchild.

My uncle, the man I looked up to so much as a youngster growing up in Dover, lost his dad and a son.

We buried my grandfather on Monday, June 29, in a rural cemetery northeast of Dover.

Four days later, we gathered again to honor Dillon at Kingfisher Cemetery.

It was a terrible, terrible week for my family.

Dillon graduated from Cashion High School in 2013.

He had so many attributes that made him an amazing young man. He said hello to everyone he came across. He said yes sir and no sir and yes ma’am and no ma’am. He opened doors. He offered help. He loved to cook.

He was a true bundle of joy.

One thing he was not, however, was overly athletic.

Dillon was a stout young man, which is another way of saying he was about as wide as he was tall.

Among the things he did at Cashion, playing football and powerlifting were near the top of his list of favorites.

In football, his build made him fit for one position: Lineman.

I didn’t get to see a bunch of Cashion games in person during his time there, but I know he didn’t play a lot.

During his senior season of 2012, Cashion won its first 13 games before losing to Wynnewood in the Class A semifinals.

It was a great season.

I’m not sure Dillon played a snap when the game was on the line.

But he was there, he practiced every day, he was dialed in at every game and Cashion football meant the world to him.

He lived those wins and felt that last loss.

He wasn’t Ty Reasnor or Joe Neece.

He didn’t win any postseason honors. He didn’t sign a football scholarship.

He’s not a player that any coach in any film session said “we’ve got to find a way to handle this guy.”

If it weren’t for his 5-star personality and attitude, Dillon wouldn’t have been someone his coaches necessarily remembered 15 years from now.

But he was a Cashion Wildcat and that meant something.

It means something.

Lynn Shackelford addressed his team for about eight minutes prior to this year’s state championship game against Thomas.

He talked to his team about finishing. Finishing a play. Finishing a series. Finishing a game. Finishing the season.

His words were about more than that game. They were about being a man. They were about life.

They were, to Shackelford, aboutbeing a Cashion Wildcat.

“I want there to be no doubt - no doubt! - about who we are and what we stand for,” Shackelford said before he pulled a player’s helmet out of a locker. It was white with a maroon “Cashion” sticker on the side, one of several the Wildcats have at their disposal.

He continued: “And I’ve talked about this until I’m blue in the face about our reputation about who we are and all of the things that come along with wearing this helmet. That’s [the Cashion sticker] on the side of it for a reason this week. Notbecause I think it looks cool, but because that’s who we are and that’s who you represent. And you represent a whole bunch of guys that have poured everything into having the opportunity to sit where you sit right now and would trade places with you in a heartbeat”

On the day before we laid Dillon to rest, Jacie gave birth to Jaxon Jay Cochran as her last heroic act on this earth.

And just like that, she was gone.

It was one of the worst days of Shackelford’s life.

Cale played for him and now coaches with him. He is family and the family had been struck by tragedy.

However, the very next morning, Shackelford woke up, put on some black slacks, black shoes, a white button-up shirt and a Cashion maroon tie.

And before he returned to Cale Cochran’s side, he drove to Kingfisher to pay his respects to Dillon Mitchell.

Not because Dillon was a great player for him.

Just simply because Dillon played for him.

He was a Cashion Wildcat.

So Shackelford’s words in that locker room five months later weren’t emptY.

They are who he is and what he represents.

He had already proven it to me when he showed up at the funeral.

But as much as Shackelford’s presence meant to me that day at Dillon’s funeral, it was another coach who lifted everyone’s spirits.

It was a coach who not only showed up, but someone who addressed and tried to console the grieving crowd.

The stadium lights were off.

The pictures had been taken.

The hugs — though dozens more to come — had subsided for the moment.

Euphoria was wearing off and reality was setting in on the only two coaches left in the locker room at UCO’s Wantland Stadium.

Cashion had just defeated Thomas 34-7 on the turf in Edmond shortly after Shackelford gave his inspiring words.

It was the fourth football state championship in the program’s history.

The Wildcats won three of them from 1977-1981, but had to wait 29 years for this one.

It was the first for Cashion since it moved to 11-man in 2008. It came after taking home silver balls in 2014, 2015 and last year.

The victory over the Terriers capped a 16-0 season - something never done in Oklahoma - and gave Shackelford the ultimate accomplishment for high school coaches.

Shackelford has won 166 games. He’s claimed district titles and had undefeated regular seasons and has coaching honors galore and has sent dozens of players to the next level.

Buthe’d never won state before Dec. 19, 2020.

Now he has. A legacy that was already on strong foundation is cemented forever.

And in those quiet moments after the locker room had mostly emptied, Shackelford got real with the man next to him.

“I told him there’s no `me’ from the standpoint of the success I’ve had without him,” Shackelford said. “There would be no Cashion football like it’s been the last 15 years, no gold ball to go in that trophy case if it wasn’t for him.”

A lot of people deserved to win that gold ball for Cashion.

So many, in fact, I won’t even begin to name them.

Except one.

It’s D.L. “Dud” Robertson, the man who was sitting next to Shackelford in the locker room and the man who provided light at the end of my family’s week of darkness in July.

My story with Dud goes all the way back to when he was the face of the Cashion program and I was a newbie at the Times & Free Press.

I had all of about a month under my belt.

The very first football game I covered was Cashion’s season opener on Sept. 5,1997, at Covington-Douglas.

Then a Class B program, Cashion defeated the host Wildcats 43-22.

I had already met Dud prior to that night when I attended a Cashion practice.

Once I got over the initial fear of the imposing human being in front of me, I discovered Dud not to be just personable, but a genuinely good person.

After the game in Covington, I approached Dud for the postgame comments. Instinctively, we went to shake with our right hands.

At the last second, I realized I had fresh stitches in my right palm from a four-wheeler accident earlier in the week and exposing that to Dud’s grip would have been the second-worst - and possibly the worst decision that week.

After an awkward left-handed shake, Dud talked to me about the game, treated me like a pro and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Over the next few years, there were a few highs for the programs and some lows.

In Dud’s finalyear as head coach, 2003, he brought in an assistant named Lynn Shackelford.

After that year, Cashion opted to bring back

Phil Elerick, the man who coached Cashion to its two most recent state titles.

Dud was done with football, or so it seemed, but Cashion still needed him.

That included one year in which the superintendent announced and principal announced resignations, one of them effective immediately.

Dud stepped up to be dean of students for the last semester and seemingly kept the school glued together by himself.

Elerick coached two years and had moderate success.

When he left following the 2005 season, Shackelford was given the reins to the program.

“The first thing I did was beg him (Dud) to come help me,” Shackelford said. “That’s because he’s a football coach. It’s what he was put on this earth to do. Anyone who’s spent anytime around him knows that.”

Without a hint of pride, Dud accepted.

Two years later, Cashion moved up to 11-man.

With Dud and Shack (and so many other key contributors) side-by-side, the Wildcats have won nine district titles, been to the semifinals six times and the state title game four times.

And, finally, Dud won that gold ball.

“He’s as big a part of the success we’ve had as anyone,” Shackelford said of Robertson, who has been with Cashion in one form or another since 1987.

“To have him be a part of that (state championship) was really special to me and something I wanted to do. If anybody earned it, he’s earned it.”

Cashion didn’t win a state championship because it had the best skill players (which it did). It won because Dud found a way to mold an inexperienced and mostly undersized group of linemen into a unit that somehow found a way to wear down a team with titans up front like Thomas.

“The kids we had back we moved around. We were bringing in new kids who hadn’t played a lot of meaningful varsity snaps,” Shackelford said. “Just the job they did all year long is a testament to Dud and his ability to coach and, if nothing else, get them to believe they are good.”

Cayden Cochran has done some things.

The 2009 Cashion High School graduate tore his ACL during his senior season of football (2008).

He returned just months later to win the Class 2A state championship in the 100 meter dash and ultimately quarterbacked Valdosta State to the NCAA Division II national championship in 2012.

His playing career turned into a career in coaching and Cochran has been climbing the ladder for the last several years.

It recently landed him in Hattiesburg, Miss., when he was named the tight ends coach at Southern Miss.

Shackelford is undoubtedly a HUGE influence on him, but Cochran doesn’t hold back when talking about what Dud Robertson means to him and to Cashion football.

“Coach Robertson in a lot of ways is the glue that has held Cashion athletics together for so many years,” he said. “I’ve never been around a coach that was more able to connect with different types of kids and players like him.”

Dud is demanding, but he also gives each of his players a sense of value.

“He has an unbelievable way of making each player feel like they are the most important piece of the puzzle,” Cochran said. “I know me personally, I never wanted to disappoint Coach Robertson and I wanted to give him everything I had because I knew that he was going to do the same for me and for everybody else on the team.”

Cochran said, to this day, he tries to emulate Dud’s coaching style.

And that part Shackelford said about Dud making players at least believe they were good?

Cochran added: “I heard this said about a coach the other day and I think it 100 percent explains Coach Robertson: ‘He has a way of making a bad player feel like an average player, the average player feel like a great player and a great player feel unstoppable”

It was a terrible, terrible week for my family.

My grandpa was my Dud, in a sense. I never wanted to let him down in any way.

My cousin wasn’t born into our family, but he was as big a part of it as any of the rest of us.

In a span of 24 hours, both were gone.

So when I saw Shackelford and when I saw Dud at Dillon’s funeral, my heart swelled with pride and tears welled just a little in my eyes.

They were my people because they were coaches.

They were Dillon’s coaches, yet so much more.

And were there.

Then Dud spoke.

In his commanding voice - and in a way that only a coach can - Dud drew us all in.

He talked about Dillon’s impenetrable happiness and his contagious personality. There were still tears in the audience, but also some smiles.

Dud not only coached Dillon in football, but in powerlifting.

He told the story of approaching Dillon just before the powerlifting regional his senior year.

Dillon was a heavyweight, but Cashion needed him at super-heavyweight where his chances of personal success were greatly diminished.

Dud told us that Dillon took on the challenge without hesitation.

“Not because it was good for Dillon,” Dud told us. “But because it was best for the team.”

Dud continued his narrative with an account from one of the contest judges who spoke glowingly of Dillon and his personality throughout the regional competition and how he won over opposing coaches and competitors.

“Then he went out there and qualified for state,” Dud barked.

He said it with a source of pride that reached each and every one of us at that funeral.

It was a terrible, terrible week for my family, but Dud made us all feel just a little bit better.

That includes my uncle, Jon.

I asked him if there was any way Dud’s words were able to lift him up that day.

“Yes they did,” Jon said. “He always has the kids’ best interests at heart. He’s a wonderful coach and a great person as a whole.”

That’s the power of a coach. That’s Dud.

So whether he knows it or not, Dud did the unthinkable for my family in July.

That’s why in August, September, October, November and December I rooted for the Wildcats.

I wanted them to win it for a lot of people, but mostly for Dud.

Thank you, Coach, and congratulations. You deserve it.

A