Aberdeen Christian has a new girls’ basketball coach and he is a familiar sports figure in Aberdeen.

Andre Cobbs will take over the program is excited about the opportunity. Cobbs, who serves as the assistant boys’ soccer coach for Aberdeen Central, has a son that goes to school at Christian and has attended some school sporting events in the past.

“I love the environment. Everybody shows up to the games. Everybody is excited,” Cobbs said. “Whether you’re winning or losing, grandparents, parents, random people show up, so I just love the environment of the place.”

Cobbs, who teaches computer science at Central, has not coached basketball at the varsity level before, but said there is strong correlation between soccer and basketball.

“Actually we had our first practice (Thursday), and it was the same thing as my first soccer practice,” Cobbs said. “We do very simple dribbling, passing, and shooting. … I’m a footwork guy, so a lot the drills are actually the same thing, because in soccer and in basketball it’s kind of the same thing where you’re chasing a ball, then you’ve got to side step, then you’ve got to back pedal, so you’ve got to constantly be moving. So the movements are the same, but it’s actually the exact same drill we used to do at football practice. So a lot of it transfers.”

While Cobbs has never coached at Christian before, he said he is familiar with some of the players and also knows about the history of the program.

“I actually go to church with quite a few of them,” he said, “and then because my daughters are the same age, I’ve kind of known them.”

He said he likes what he has seen so far from his new players.

“The girls are just nice,” Cobbs said. “They came in right away and I like to work hard. They came in right away and worked hard. They did exactly what I asked.”

Cobbs becomes the third coach of the program in the past four years. He said continuity is a key thing to developing a squad.

“I love the skill level that we have right now. We’re a young team, but a very skilled team,” Cobbs said, “and I just think they need some continuity where they’ve got the same concept, the same plays, the same coach, the same everything. I think they’ve just had so many changes in the past couple of years.”

Cobbs underwent a major change in his life back during his college days. After playing football at Richmond University in Virginia for a few years, he was ready for something else and he somehow ended up in Aberdeen.

“I just wanted to get away from football, I just wanted to get far away from everything,” Cobbs said, “and this is far away from everything.”

With a little guidance from his niece he managed to come to South Dakota.

“I was babysitting my niece, who was about 4 or 5 months old at the time. We were looking at a map and she was just pointing at places, you know how babies do, and she pointed at South Dakota. This is a real story,” Cobbs said. “She pointed at South Dakota  and I started looking at the schools and there was just something that just pushed me towards Aberdeen, South Dakota.”

And the rest as they say is history and Cobbs could not be happier about it.

“I literally picked up everything, got on a bus and I came all the way to South Dakota, not knowing anybody,” he said, “and 20 years later, I’m married, I have three children, and I kid you not, I am literally living my best life.”