It wasn’t as if Bridgeport Coach Mike Robey was heading into unchartered territory when he took the media podium for the post-game press conference following the Indians’ season-ending Class AA semifinal loss to Fairmont Senior Friday at the Charleston Civic Center. He, and hundreds of others before him have sat in the same seat, facing the same questions, feeling the same emotions.

 

As Robey gave his initial comments to the media that was gathered, his usually strong voice was a bit uneasy. For anyone that has talked to a coach that had just watched their team fall short of a goal – and an obtainable one at that – they knew things had almost certainly gotten emotional with his club before he had to handle the mandatory media obligations.

 

In short order, Robey gathered himself. He talked about the game. He talked about the opponent. He praised his team. He praised his foe. He described what went wrong. Basically, he said all the right things.

 

And as is usually the case, Robey was asked about if it was going to be tough to see this group of seniors go. The reaction was not unexpected.

 

“Yea,” he said as tears welled up immediately in his eyes and tried to get the words out before realizing it was a failing venture. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

 

Robey wasn’t the first not to get through a question of that nature. He won’t be the last. However, he is more a part of a unique class of coach that made saying goodbye Friday difficult on multiple fronts. And when you go beyond that, there was something that may have put Robey in a class by himself with the obviously raw emotions he was dealing with in Charleston.

 

As is already known, the season concluded not with a Class AA title, but with a setback to the Polar Bears. Second, he was saying goodbye to seniors he not only helped mold during his days as an assistant coach, but who played a big part in last year’s state tournament appearance in Robey’s first season as the head coach.

 

Then, there was one really big factor. Robey was calling the season over after having the opportunity to coach his own son Chase. Had those been the only factors involved, Robey’s emotions would have been understandable. Yet unlike so many who have sat in the same seat, Robey’s emotion was a completely mixed bag of raw feelings perhaps unlike no other that had the groundwork set in the late 2000s.

 

Here’s the thing, no matter how bad Mike Robey felt Friday afternoon, that bitter ending was better than he faced seven years ago. As despondent as he was, Robey knew it – and he knew it prior to leaving for Charleston this past week – that he would never feel like he felt in 2009 no matter where the 2014-15 season ended.

 

Robey had already guaranteed that he wouldn’t walk that same path several years ago. It was something he guaranteed when he decided to become an assistant coach for long-time Indians’ head man Gene Randolph.

 

It was in those years prior to joining Randolph that Robey was an assistant for Robert C. Byrd head Coach Bill Bennett. Robey, who teaches at Washington Irving Middle School, has long been the best of friends with Bennett and Robey being on the RCB staff was comfortable territory. Robey knew the players well thanks to his own children playing with youngsters that would eventually man the Eagles’ roster on the AAU circuit.

 

There was, however, a problem. As it turned out, it was a problem that has provided emotional baggage that he carries to this day and had with him Friday. It is baggage, he said, he’ll never be able to get rid of. But as he told himself when he left the Eagles, it was baggage he could avoid adding to.

It was back in the 2007-08 season, the Indians and the Eagles – as they so often and usually do – were meeting in the sectional championship game. Although there was still one more game to be played in order to get to the state tournament, it was clear the winner of the sectional game would represent the region in Charleston.

 

As he always did, Robey worked with Bennett in strategy. He worked to find a way to win. And the Eagles did win.

 

It was then that Robey encountered something that he knew in the back of his mind he would have to deal with one or another, but never anticipated it would hurt to the very core of his being. As the players he grew so closely to celebrated and the Eagles went to shake hands with their rivals in front of a capacity crowd at Lincoln High School, Robey saw the one player he loved more than anyone – and it was a player not wearing the colors of RCB.

 

He looked up to see the one player in red and white that meant to him more than anyone else playing. And for obvious reasons.

 

There stood a distraught and heartbroken Christopher Robey. The last name looks familiar because it was his son who he had just helped beat. And seeing his own flesh and blood crushed was more than the long-time coach could bear.

 

“Every day I think about that. It was so difficult to go through that. I knew it, but when I saw that look on his face it was this feeling that I was trying to stop my own son,” said Robey. “That RCB team had worked so hard and those kids deserved the jubilation and I was there in the middle of it.

 

“I’m still smiling when we go to shake hands and I turn around and there it is … and it just smacked me in the face like nothing else in my life on a basketball court,” he continued. “There’s my son with tears flowing down his cheeks. It was a punch in the gut. That wasn’t just as bad a feeling as I’ve ever had coaching; it was one of the worst feelings in my entire life.”

 

So bad that Robey decided that he not only couldn’t do it again, but he wouldn’t do it again. With another son – Chase – in the Bridgeport system, Robey decided he would rather watch his son and give up what he loves than coach again and risk the chance to ever have to coach against him.

 

“After Christopher graduated, I told myself that it wouldn’t happen again. It wasn’t that I had to coach Chase, but I guaranteed that I wouldn’t coach against him,” said Robey. “It’s wonderful to coach Chase, but if I would have had to be in the stands that wouldn’t be a problem. To this day, to this second, it bothers me about seeing Christopher. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about it.”

 

This year, you can bet Mike Robey spent most of his time thinking about how to get to Charleston, how to get another Class AA title for the Indians even if he still couldn’t shake the thought of his oldest child. Even with that, Robey knew this year was special. The joy of having “as good a group of kids as I’ve ever been around” was aided by the fact that he was coaching his own son and so many of his son’s friends.

 

“It’s been a great year and to be able to coach a kid like Chase has made it that much more enjoyable. Even if he wasn’t my son I’d tell you he’s a dream to coach because he’s about the team and he’s about learning,” Robey said. “It made our season so much more enjoyable because of it and it made our already strong relationship as father and son even stronger. Even without the success, it would have made this a year to remember. With the success, it certainly made things better.”

 

Robey was right. The ending may have been bitter, but it was still better. And it was better for Robey as both a coach and a father.