Bobik "Bidness": February 2008

OSU's Bobik balances family, hoops
By Berry Tramel
The Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Daniel Bobik walks through the door of the cozy house on the northeast side of town, and here comes the welcome that trumps anything seen on game day in Gallagher-Iba Arena. Jaxton Bobik, who turns 3 this summer, zips down the hallway ready for action. Daddy is home from work — basketball and school — and Jaxton wants to play. Natalie Bobik, the spitfire blond who stole Daniel’s heart back in Utah and CBS’ spotlight during March Madness 2004, has a mission for her husband, too. Daniel has brought visitors home for dinner, and Navajo tacos don’t get made by themselves. There’s even a dog, a pug named Eddie, after a certain scowling basketball coach. Daniel Bobik is a man among men. On a team with eight players at least 22 years old, on a team with five fifth-year seniors, Bobik stands alone.His life is unlike his teammates’. Bobik has more in common with head coach designate Sean Sutton, father to three pre-teen boys, than he does even his fellow seniors.“This is why he’s different,” said Lee Manzer, an OSU business professor who attends Stillwater’s Mormon church with the Bobiks. “When they (coaches) give you a day off, you know what Bobik’s day off is? His wife hands him the baby and says, ‘He’s yours.’“His day off is to take care of that rambunctious boy. Not saying he minds that. But that’s his day off.” Sean Sutton believes Bobik is the first Cowboys player to be married with a child since Johnny Pittman, Eddie Sutton’s first center at OSU, back in 1990-91. “It’s awesome,” Bobik said of playing the highest level of house while he’s playing the highest level of college hoops. “Having my family to experience it. Definitely the best of both worlds.” The other day at practice, Eddie Sutton warned his players to enjoy their college days. Especially the seniors. The time is short, Sutton told them. Soon enough, the season ends. The classwork ends. Eventually, basketball is gone, too. “Then the real life starts,” Sutton said. “Go out, get a job, get married, have a family." From the back of the room came a voice of experience. “I hear you, Coach,” Bobik said.
Spaghetti pie
Bobik came to Stillwater in summer 2001 sans scholarship. He transferred from Brigham Young to play for Eddie Sutton, who had coached Daniel’s father, Ralph, at Creighton in the 1970s. Bobik came to find a better basketball experience. But it came at a price: the uprooting of his family. Daniel and Natalie met in the ninth grade in Provo, Utah. Natalie had a major crush on the new kid in school; the new kid was shy around girls. Daniel signed Natalie’s freshman yearbook this way: “Natalie, I’m really sorry that things didn’t work out this year. But I want you to know that someday they will.” Then the Bobiks moved back to California. Five years later, after graduation and a two-year Mormon mission to the Dominican Republic, Daniel was a basketball freshman at BYU and remembered the vivacious girl from Timpview High School. He looked her up, asked her out and they were married less than a year later, on June 1, 2001. “I remembered she was a lot of fun,” Daniel said. “I was too immature at 14 to say thanks for being nice to me.“ We hit it off (at BYU). It was like we were best friends. Unlike any other date I had been on.”But a year into marriage, Daniel wanted to leave BYU. Jaxton was 6 weeks old when they arrived in Stillwater.“At first, I put up a little fight,” Natalie said. “I said, ‘What!’ I was pregnant. I knew it would be hard. But my mom was supportive. She said, ‘You need to be out on your own. That’s how you grow.’ ”Nothing about that first year was easy. Daniel worked, went to school and practiced with the Cowboys. Natalie, who knew no one in town upon arrival, stayed home with Jaxton.“We were so poor,” Natalie said. One night, she made spaghetti pie, a baked concoction of spaghetti, cottage cheese, mozzarella and eggs. It was a Bobik staple in those days. En route from oven to table, Natalie dropped the spaghetti pie, and it scattered across the floor. Money was too tight to go wasting a whole spaghetti pie, so Natalie scooped up anything that hadn’t touched the floor, and the Bobiks finished their dinner. Daniel worked odd jobs for the late Jerry Carpenter, who owned an insurance company, and Rusty Shaw, who operates the Conoco stores in Stillwater. Daniel and Joey Graham, who also was without a scholarship that season, worked together cleaning car washes and painting gas pumps. Natalie took a photo of Daniel doing the latter, as a keepsake. “We’re keeping this forever to show our kids,” she said. Eventually, Daniel went on scholarship and the Bobiks made friends. They became very active in the church, where Daniel is a youth leader and occasional speaker for the Mormons, who do not employ paid ministers. Said Daniel, “My family, my beliefs, are something that are sacred to me.” Before Navajo tacos are served, Daniel leads his family and visitors in prayer. The house is homey but not spacious. Few clues show it’s the home of a starter on the nation’s fourth-ranked basketball team. An All-College MVP trophy sits hidden in the corner. A couple of wedding photos show Daniel in a tux, holding a ball, and Daniel wearing a hoops uniform opposite Natalie in a wedding dress. The dining-room table sports four folding chairs. Daniel and Natalie make inside jokes over dinner and call each other silly nicknames. Daniel is Weetie; Natalie is Boozu. Don’t ask. “He knew I was crazy when he married me,” Natalie said. “I’m not going to change who I am. Daniel lets me be me.” Two lives to live Bobik says he tries to keep his two lives separate. Basketball player and husband/father. One of the guys at Gallagher-Iba, man of the house with Natalie and Jaxton.“I’ve been amazed the way he’s been able to handle everything,” Sean Sutton said. “He’s been able to balance both.” Sometimes, the lives converge. Natalie occasionally will show up for the end of practice, with Jaxton in tow. And Natalie rarely misses a game, even on the road. She and her sister, Kristi Monks, have become part of OSU lore. At the 2004 Big 12 Tournament, the sisters, sporting “Cool Chicks Wear Orange” shirts and goofy hats, mimicked riding horses while dancing to the William Tell Overture. Their hijinks quickly became a tradition. The sisters made the “One Shining Moment” segment that annually concludes CBS’ NCAA Tournament coverage, and they have trademarked the cool-chicks slogan and are selling T-shirts in Stillwater and via the Internet. “I’m always looking up to the stands,” Daniel said. “I’m proud of that, that my family’s there, supporting me. To see them happy, Jaxton decked out in orange stuff. Natalie decked out, that makes my day.”Joey Graham, about as mature a 22-year-old as you’re likely to find, said Bobik isn’t missing anything with his unconventional journey through college basketball. “He has his responsibilities,” Graham said. “On the court, he’s one of the guys. ”Sometimes, Bobik’s teammates stop by the house. But they enter a foreign land. “They kind of get it,” Bobik said of family life. No, said Natalie with a laugh, “They don’t get it.” Daniel admitted that freshman JamesOn Curry “thinks of me as something like a grandpa.” Soon enough, the Bobiks probably will leave Stillwater. Daniel graduates in May with a marketing degree, and he’s not ready to give up on basketball.“I’m going to miss this place,” Daniel said. “Life is all about experience, and this is definitely an experience.” The Navajo tacos are gone, the dishes put away and an 8:30 curfew looms for Jaxton, who needs a bath and his teeth brushed. Daniel Bobik has a job to do.

This is our dog Eddie, for those of you who may not know. He is the best pug in the entire world. We all love him although Daniel would not admit that, so don't ask! His favorite activites include: Sitting under the table while Blaykli is eating, sleeping on Jaxton's head at nights, coming and sleeping on our bed pillows every morning, basking in the sun in Blaykli's room, barking at the mail man and sleeping on my legs every time I sit on the couch. We have had Eddie for 4 years and he is definitely part of the family. It will be a sad day at the Bobik residence if something ever happens to Eddie. He stinks, he stinks really bad. He's completely overweight and most people that meet him call him sausage, so I think he has a complex, but other than that, he's the best!!!!