BIG IDEALS
Aaron Cochran appreciated opportunity at OSU, and Cowboys were thankful for him, too
For the length of their two sons’ football careers at Cal, Rod Cochran and his wife, Nicole, would hop in the car and make the 110-mile drive to Berkeley to watch them play.
Then, for his final year, their youngest son decided he wanted to play at Oklahoma State, a decision that added several hundred miles to mom and dad’s drive.
But they kept making that drive — nearly 2,100 miles from where they now live — missing only one home game in Aaron Cochran’s senior season in Stillwater.
“Good thing my wife and I get along,” Rod Cochran said with a laugh. “I’m a pastor and my wife is an academic adviser for a local university, so it’s not like we had the funds to hop on flights every other weekend. So we just planned our trips and made the drive.”
As a graduate transfer, Aaron has started every game on the offensive line in OSU’s high-powered offense heading into Thursday’s 4:15 p.m. kickoff against Virginia Tech in the Camping World Bowl.
His parents, though, won’t be making the drive to the opposite coast for what might be Aaron’s last football game.
Listed at 6-foot-8 and 350 pounds, and playing the prized position of left tackle, Aaron hasn’t yet made up his mind about whether he wants to pursue a professional playing career.
“He’s still trying to make his decision,” Rod Cochran said. “He’s focused on the bowl game, and then he’ll look at all his options. He’s not real sure, and we don’t have any pressure on him either way.
“We wanted him to get a college degree, and he did that. That was our Super Bowl. The rest of his life is open for him.”
If football isn’t his future, Aaron is likely to go into education — but not necessarily teaching, in the traditional sense.
“He was a kid who was very high achieving, academically,” Rod said. “But he recognized he had a different learning style. He wants to be able to develop ways to connect with kids to meet and match their learning styles, so they can be successful. Not just achievement, but attainment.
“He wants to find ways to impart knowledge and thought, rather than just test scores and grades.”
“Thought” has always been a powerful word in the Cochran household.
Thought was given to all details of life, and even though Aaron was unavailable to the media as a firstyear player in the OSU program, his thoughtful approach has been visible through social media.
Aaron is still a college student, so his Twitter page maintains some flavor of youth. But he’s not afraid to share his feelings about political or social issues, and he does it with — you guessed it — thought, avoiding the overwhelming social media trap of spewing hate and anger.
Because of his mental makeup, Aaron never had any trouble fitting into the culture Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy talks about so fervently.
“He’s been awesome,” Gundy said. “Aaron’s a great guy. I tease him all the time about being from California and being soft. But he’s been good. We’re thankful that he came here.”
Aaron impressed Gundy from the second time he
showed up in Stillwater. The first time he came in, for a visit when he was considering a transfer to OSU, Aaron weighed 365 pounds.
Gundy told him he’d need to lose 30 pounds to be able to play in the Cowboys’ fast-paced offense.
He returned in the summer weighting 330, following the plan given to him by strength coach Rob Glass.
“The parameters were set,” Rod Cochran said. “Aaron understood it and bought into it immediately. We left that visit knowing he had a road map to where he needed to be, and he’s disciplined enough to keep to the regimen.
“That’s one of the things that appealed to Aaron the most — that they had a plan for him, and they weren’t just saying, ‘Oh, we’d love to have you here.’”
The move to OSU reconnected Aaron with linebacker Chad Whitener, who played his freshman season. The two had quickly become close friends before Whitener transferred. He helped give Aaron an idea of what he might be in for if he came to Stillwater.
The way he is and the way he communicates, I knew he’d fit in here perfectly,” Whitener said. “He’s a smart guy, something you notice right away when you talk to him.
“He’s very passionate and empathetic to others. He’s one of those friends you want in your corner no matter what. I’m really happy that I met him five years ago, and had him follow me here eventually.”
Aaron was equally thrilled to have such a good friend with him for the transition to OSU.
“Chad is like a brother to him,” Rod Cochran said. “When they were at Cal, they bonded immediately, so I think it was a great capstone to his collegiate career, being able to spend that last season with his best friend.”