MISSOULA — Chris Cobb has been a familiar face along the Montana men's basketball sideline the past 12 seasons, where win after win and conference championship after conference championship have bolstered the program.
He's been synonymous with the Griz program as head coach Travis DeCuire's right-hand man. Now he's beginning a new chapter as the associate head coach at Saint Mary's (Calif.) in the West Coast Conference, a school about 15 minutes from where Cobb grew up.
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"You always are trying to find ways to make sure that you're growing and getting better and becoming who you need to become, right?" Cobb recently told MTN Sports. "And this was an opportunity that we felt like we needed to do and got us closer to family, myself being from the Bay Area and all that.
"But I think this place has meant so much to us and it's a place that we'll always love and I think be able to call home."
Cobb, 39, arrived in Missoula in 2014 alongside DeCuire and had been here ever since, including the past decade as Montana's associate head coach.
The two have been in lockstep, including last year when DeCuire broke Montana's all-time wins record, an accomplishment the UM head man is quick to point out is a shared accomplishment with Cobb.
"The first thing was with Travis," Cobb said. "I think you have opportunities to take other jobs if you do a good job, right? And we were doing that when we were first here. And being with Travis and the partnership and the sense of connection and family that Travis created within our program was what got me to stay. And so I loved the job. I loved the competitiveness that we had and what we were building.
"There's so many things we're proud of. I actually think, you talk about all the things, all the high points, but even the low points, like that's when you have to be connected and with your staff and be a family more than ever, right? Coaching, there's so many highs, so many lows, there's some bad nights.
"And we're fortunate that we've had so many good nights together. But it's been a place that I think one thing we've always done is we've hired guys that see it very similarly, so we are competing the same way, value the same things. And that's why I think we've been able to hopefully maintain a level of in a standard that when you go down on Thursdays and Saturdays, you're proud for the most part of what you see."
Cobb's family grew in Missoula over that time, and the Garden City began to become home with his wife, Alisa, and children, Clayton and Olivia.
"It just works so seamlessly with the job, with having a family and raising a family," Cobb said. "And then you have the kids and you're like, I can't take my kids out of this place, right? They're having too good of an experience and there's too good of people to impact them. And so I think it was the culmination of all those things."
During his time at Montana, Cobb has been a rising assistant coach in the college basketball ranks, with a head coaching future a real goal as he continues to expand, evolve and adapt in the game.
"I'm excited to go and grow and kind of add a little bit more tools to my toolbox to help hopefully prepare me whenever that opportunity comes," Cobb said. "I think the person that I am when I got here is hopefully the same guy that I leave with in terms of the morals and values. But I've grown so much and taken so much from the relationships and the people that are here in this community. I couldn't be more thankful of it.
"You walk in and you see the banners at Saint Mary's and they're winning over 25 games every year and going to seven of the last eight NCAA tournaments. And that's a pretty high standard to be at. You know, you're competing in a top-25, top-30 level every single year. And so I'm excited to help him hold that standard and make it his own, and grow myself the areas that I think I want to continue to grow to hopefully become the best head coach I can be one day is something that I'm excited to do."
And wherever he goes, Montana, Missoula and the Griz will forever be part of Cobb's journey going forward.
"There was nothing that I appreciated more than wearing Grizzly athletics, Grizzly basketball across my chest, walking through an airport and hearing someone say, 'Go Griz' and what that meant," Cobb said.
"And we poured everything we had into this place and are really thankful and proud of what we did. And yeah, I look forward to watching them grow and continue to win games, and we'll always be Grizzlies."
