Coe’s Jacob Robertson with own man these days

CEDAR RAPIDS — Jacob Robertson has always admired basketball players.

From his father Chris, the boys’ basketball coach at Linn-Mar, to the kids on his dad’s teams who seemed like giants to Jacob when he was the team’s ball boy.

“I still don’t think I’m as old as they were when I was that age,” he said.

After a solid senior year at Linn-Mar, Robertson molded into his own player.

“The coolest thing was playing for my dad. I’ve always looked up to him and he knows a lot about the game,” said Robertson, who just turned 22. “I played about as well as I could have and it felt like people stopped thinking I played because my dad was the coach and instead because I earned my spot.”

Although he also received an offer from Wartburg, Central was the main obstacle in his path to Coe, since both of his parents, Chris and Laura, went to college in Pella.

“Mom really wanted me to go to Central and I visited six times, but I wanted to stay close to home so they could come to my games,” Robertson said. “Especially with my dad being a coach.”

After earning eight to 10 minutes per game as a freshman, Robertson hit the weight room with Kohawks strength and conditioning coach Matt Walter, and saw enough gains to find himself in a sixth-man role as a sophomore before an injury moved him into the starting five.

“Everything just fell into place and I ended up second team all-A-R-C,” Robertson said.

Coe (20-7, 11-5) lost to Buena Vista (14-12, 11-5) in the American Rivers Conference tournament semifinals at Storm Lake Thursday night, 95-81.

With graduation 10 weeks away, Robertson is finishing his degree in accounting and has accepted a job in Des Moines doing tax preparation for local businesses.

When asked how he plans to manage the heavy accounting workload during the busy basketball season, Robertson said “I’ll probably have my phone on the side of my desk, watching March Madness.”

Championship week

Kirkwood’s men’s team (21-7, 13-3) begins the Region XI tournament trek Saturday at Mason City, where the No. 1 Eagles face the winner of No. 8 Iowa Central and No. 9 Northeast at 5 p.m.

The No. 1-seeded Kirkwood women (29-1, 20-0) will host the winner of No. 8 Southwestern and No. 9 DMACC on March 2 at 5:30 p.m. at Johnson Hall.

The Cornell men (17-8, 12-4) travel to Ripon, Wis., to face Grinnell in the Midwest Conference tournament Friday afternoon. Upper Iowa’s men (24-4, 18-4) will compete in the Northern Sun tournament in Sioux Falls S.D., beginning Saturday.

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