Savage Has Always Stood Out
Sep 29, 2022 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Stacey Godbolt signed up her son to play flag football. He was 4. He wasn't the tallest and he wasn't the biggest. But, man, could he tackle. Except he wasn't supposed to tackle. The coaches in Sulphur Springs, Texas, told him to pull the flag off the kid. That wasn't enough for Kobe Savage. So he tackled the ball carrier. Parents gasped. Stacey shook her head. This was her son. He was different.
He's different in a good way, of course, because you don't get to this level unless you can separate yourself from the pack, unless you stand out. All of his life, Kobe has strived to stand out. He stands in the Vanier Family Football Complex in a Kansas State purple hoodie on Tuesday. He has a mop of hair that announces his presence. It is different. It is a great kind of different. And when he plays, man, he's a whole lotta different.
Kobe has played one Big 12 Conference game in his life. It was this past Saturday. K-State whooped No. 6 Oklahoma 41-34 in Norman, Oklahoma. Kobe had 11 tackles. Oklahoma fans gasped. Stacey was in the stands at Memorial Stadium, in the sea of red. She heard her son silence 84,000 people. It was different.
"It's still a dream for me," Stacey says. "I mean, I've always had faith in him, but for him to be there, it was so amazing. This is a ride. He's taking us on a ride. This is crazy."
Kobe arrived last spring from Tyler Junior College this past spring. And he's on his way toward becoming one of the most disruptive safeties at Kansas State in a while. He sat with fellow defensive backs Drake Cheatum and Omar Daniels in the locker room on Monday. He received a text that he had been named Big 12 Conference Newcomer of the Week. He put his phone down. He thought about football.
He is thankful to be at K-State.
He is separating himself.
And this is just the beginning.
"When it comes to your only begotten son, you cry," says Da'on Savage, Kobe's father. "This is a dream coming true, man."
Kobe likes the Big 12 honor but says there's something bigger out there.
"I'm not content where I'm at," he says. "I'm just ready to get to each level and knock down different barriers for myself."
He began the journey at age 4.
That's when he decided it was easier to bypass the flag and just send the kid into the dirt.
• • •
Kobe was born to Stacey and Da'on on February 12, 2001. His parents were young. They never married. He lived with his mother in Sulphur Springs, Texas, until seventh grade, then he moved to Paris, Texas, to live with his father.
"We've always been great teammates and co-parents," Da'on says.
Stacey loved to see Kobe run and play. Even if didn't grab the flag and went in for the kill. Kobe's first football coach told her, "This kid is crazy about football." Kobe stood by his coach. Kobe spoke to him so serious. He wanted to know everything about football.
"Kobe and I kind of grew up together," Stacey says. "I had him when I was young, so he helped me grow up. Just growing up, him seeing me struggle, I think that's made him even more tough. He worked so hard. Since he was a little boy, he's said, 'Mom, you're not going to have to worry about anything in life. I'm going to play in the NFL.'
"I don't even think he has a backup plan, to be honest."
Da'on saw 4-year-old Kobe tackle a boy.
"That's when I knew we have something on our hands here," Da'on says. "He had that aggressive nature at a young age. He's been a natural from day one."
When Kobe was 5, Stacey drove him 20 minutes outside of town to join a tackle-football team. He played on offense and defense. He loved to play everywhere on the field. He loved hitting people.
"He was so funny when he was little," she says.
• • •
South Dakota faced second-and-8 at its own 27-yard line midway through the first quarter in a season-opening game that K-State would win 34-0. Quarterback Carson Camp threw a short pass to a wide receiver named Javion Phelps near the K-State sideline. Phelps turned up field. Boom. Kobe laid into him and delivered a hit so devastating that it rocked Phelps into the K-State sideline. Kobe had flown in and slammed his right shoulder into Phelp's chest. And Phelps went down. Hard. The crowd at Bill Snyder Family Stadium yelled, "Whooooooo!"
"KOBE SAVAGE LAID THE WOOD ON THE WIDEOUT!" the TV commentator said.
It was the third possession of Kobe's first game as a Wildcat. He made his introduction to the college football world. Did he ever. He was different.
Joe Klanderman, K-State's defensive coordinator, stood on the sideline near the point of impact with his mouth wide open.
"It was right in front of me," Klanderman said, "and it as the most violent thing I've ever seen."
South Dakota punted.
• • •
Paris is a city of 25,000 people. It is in "Tornado Alley" and it is located 20 minutes from the Oklahoma state line. The city has a 65-foot Paris Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat at its summit. It has a "Jesus with Cowboy Boots" statue. It has the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial Museum. And it has football.
Kobe woke every morning at 6 a.m. He worked out with his high school quarterbacks coach at 6:30 a.m. This is how it went for several years.
"From seventh grade to 12th grade, Kobe never had a summer vacation," Da'on says. "They worked from August even through the summer. He never missed a day of workouts."
Kobe was a triple-option quarterback at Paris High School. He threw for 986 yards and rushed for 1,568 yards and scored 28 touchdowns. The summer before his senior year, everything changed. He moved to safety.
"It wasn't even a transition," Kobe says. "I just jumped over there. I didn't know anything."
He had 107 tackles, eight pass breakups, two interceptions and four tackles for a loss.
He helped Paris win district, bi-district and area championships.
"I know this sounds crazy," Stacey says, "but when Kobe gets on a team, whatever team it is — it's like he brings his whole morale and he brings a lot to the field — the team does well, and they succeed."
Kobe says that at 5-foot-11 and 206 pounds, he was undervalued and underrecruited. He signed with Texas A&M Commerce out of high school.
"I remember on Signing Day, he had a look on his face like, 'This isn't good enough,'" Da'on says. "I said, 'Kobe, it's your time, but it's not your turn.' So he went to A&M Commerce, and he redshirted, and he was ticked off, and he came to me and said, 'Dad, I want to go to juco.'
"Tyler Junior College put him into a great position to be a player. They took that boy to another level."
Kobe was 3 years old when Michael Bishop threw his final pass at K-State. Yet ask Kobe what initially drew him to K-State and he points to one of the greatest quarterbacks in K-State history.
"I remember seeing a quarterback, Michael Bishop, who came here from Blinn," he says. "It inspired me a lot knowing that he came here from the same conference I was in, and that he had a lot of success here."
Bishop, yes, Bishop was different, too.
• • •
Kobe's nickname is Hoss.
Both of his great-grandfathers were named Hoss. They were tough Texans.
"In Texas, 'Hoss' means you're the boss and do everything right," Kobe says. "That's what my family calls me."
"My dad has always called Kobe 'Hoss,'" Da'on says. "My daddy was raised by a man's man. We're tough guys, but we have that emotional side to us, and dad doesn't let that come out that much, but when it comes to Kobe, he can get emotional."
Da'on can get emotional over Kobe as well.
"Kobe has never given me any trouble a day in his life," Da'on says. "I whooped him when he was 2 years old and I think I cried more than he did."
Da'on didn't sit in the football players' parents section near the 30-yard line at Kobe's first K-State game. Da'on purchased his own ticket at the 50-yard line. He always sat at the 50 for Kobe's games. He decided it wasn't going to change now.
"And man, I sat on the 50 and he ran out for the first time pretty early for pregame, and man, I sat there and I cried like a baby," Da'on says. "Yep, I cried like a baby."
Somebody asked Kobe what he was going to do when he ran onto the field for the first time in a K-State uniform.
"Really, I'm just going to look for my mama first because that's the queen," Kobe said. "That's who I do all this for."
Stacey sat with the rest of the players' parents inside the stadium. Kobe knew where to look when he came out of the tunnel. He instantly pointed at her.
"I was thinking, my baby was once a baby and now he's a grown man playing this level of football," she says. "I don't know. Honestly, I can't describe the feeling."
• • •
"I'm too addicted to football," Kobe says, a wide grin creeping across his face as he stands inside the Vanier Family Football Complex on Tuesday. K-State will play Texas Tech at 11 a.m. Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. It'll be Kobe's next chance to send an opposing player into the turf. There's a method to the madness, really. And it begins with hours and hours of film study — a unflappable fascination that began in high school.
Kobe studies how players move around. He studies their tendencies, the quarterback's cadence, or the way that he stands if he's going to pass, or if he rubs his hands for a pass, or how the offensive line sits in stance for a run. That's just the beginning. There's much more to watching film. Kobe simply doesn't have time to explain everything.
"There's just something about it," Kobe says. "I just love watching it."
Sometimes, Kobe watches so much film that he gets tired and takes a nap inside the football facility. Then he wakes up and watches some more.
Sometimes, he turns Joe Klanderman's office into his own personal haven. He can talk ball with Klanderman for hours. That's what they did on Kobe's recruiting visit to K-State. They talked family. Then they talked ball. If Kobe had his way, he would earn his doctorate in talking ball.
"Sometimes, I'll go to Coach Klanderman's office and just look at the field, eat some M&M's and talk about football," Kobe says. "We'll talk about the gameplan, about what he sees for this week, and what's the best thing for our defense, just little things like that.
"I'm really addicted to football."
K-State head coach Chris Klieman, who played safety at Northern Iowa, loves Kobe for many reasons. He loves his personality. He loves his aggressiveness. He loves that Kobe loves football. Klieman remembers looking out his office window this past summer. Kobe was on the field doing drills in 90-degree heat. He did this all the time.
"If you track him for a day, that kid doesn't sit and he probably doesn't sleep a whole lot," Klieman says. "That kid is always doing something football related, whether it's recovery to doing extra drills in practice.
"It's fun because he's reaping the rewards, but he's put the work and the effort in. It's neat when a kid has the success that he surely has earned."
K-State first entered the picture for Kobe on December 4. That's when Kobe says he received a phone call from Klieman. Kobe and Tyler Junior College were about to play Coffeyville Community College in the Heart of Texas Bowl. Kobe says he called Klieman at halftime and said that he would call him after the game.
"They offered me on that bus and I was like, 'I'm ready to take a visit as soon as possible.'"
Kobe called his father. Only because he had to.
"Kobe is always wanting to surprise me and his mother," Da'on says. "We didn't know about it. I'd already bought at North Texas Mean Green t-shirt and hat because I thought my son was going to be right down the road. K-State called him and he didn't tell me immediately. Then he said, 'Daddy, get ready to go to Manhattan on Friday.'
"I smiled all week long. I don't think I've stopped smiling."
Klanderman says, "Kobe was just a tremendously under-recruited kid."
Kobe and his parents took an official visit on December 10. Five days later, he signed his letter-of-intent with K-State.
"I couldn't have dreamed of putting my son with a better group of coaches," Da'on says. "Klieman, that dude is awesome, man. When my grandkids come along, I hope he's still coaching.
"This whole thing has been a Godsend. We're God-fearing people. We love the Lord. We know this is all about the Lord. The Lord did this for our son. This is a blessing.
"Manhattan is a blessing for us."
• • •
Kobe remembers this: He had a message for his mom.
"I told my mom I wasn't going to come back without proving myself to everybody in this world and in this conference that I can play," he says.
And now?
"I'm just striving for bigger goals," he says, "and to improve every day."
What are Kobe's goals?
"I want it all."
There's a mantra that Stacey and Da'on instilled into their son at an early age: "Separate yourself."
"That's a big part of my life," he says. "I've always had competition. We could be tying our shoes to see who ties them faster. Little things like that are going to make a difference with big-time goals."
What has Kobe learned most about himself during his journey?
"I'd be nothing without Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior," he says. "I learned to be tough and to never let anything get to be because at the end of the day, things are going to happen for a reason. Everything is written, as I always tell my teammates. I've just learned to be tough and resilient through everything."
He certainly stands out.
Through four games, Kobe ranks second on the team with 23 total tackles. He picked off a pass in back-to-back games against Missouri and Tulane, ranking ninth in the FBS and tops in the Big 12 in total interceptions.
"He's going to be the type of guy who's always going to play hard, be locked in, and play with a bunch of intensity," Klanderman says.
Kobe has carried those traits with him since age 4. And now? He's separated himself. When he plays, man, he's a whole lotta different. And that will be benefit him and the Wildcats the rest of his K-State career.
"I've prayed for him from the time I've had him to today," Stacey says. "He's just a blessing. He really is a good kid."
She pauses.
"All I know is that boy is different."
It is a great kind of different.
Stacey Godbolt signed up her son to play flag football. He was 4. He wasn't the tallest and he wasn't the biggest. But, man, could he tackle. Except he wasn't supposed to tackle. The coaches in Sulphur Springs, Texas, told him to pull the flag off the kid. That wasn't enough for Kobe Savage. So he tackled the ball carrier. Parents gasped. Stacey shook her head. This was her son. He was different.
He's different in a good way, of course, because you don't get to this level unless you can separate yourself from the pack, unless you stand out. All of his life, Kobe has strived to stand out. He stands in the Vanier Family Football Complex in a Kansas State purple hoodie on Tuesday. He has a mop of hair that announces his presence. It is different. It is a great kind of different. And when he plays, man, he's a whole lotta different.
Kobe has played one Big 12 Conference game in his life. It was this past Saturday. K-State whooped No. 6 Oklahoma 41-34 in Norman, Oklahoma. Kobe had 11 tackles. Oklahoma fans gasped. Stacey was in the stands at Memorial Stadium, in the sea of red. She heard her son silence 84,000 people. It was different.
"It's still a dream for me," Stacey says. "I mean, I've always had faith in him, but for him to be there, it was so amazing. This is a ride. He's taking us on a ride. This is crazy."
Kobe arrived last spring from Tyler Junior College this past spring. And he's on his way toward becoming one of the most disruptive safeties at Kansas State in a while. He sat with fellow defensive backs Drake Cheatum and Omar Daniels in the locker room on Monday. He received a text that he had been named Big 12 Conference Newcomer of the Week. He put his phone down. He thought about football.
He is thankful to be at K-State.
He is separating himself.
And this is just the beginning.
"When it comes to your only begotten son, you cry," says Da'on Savage, Kobe's father. "This is a dream coming true, man."
Kobe likes the Big 12 honor but says there's something bigger out there.
"I'm not content where I'm at," he says. "I'm just ready to get to each level and knock down different barriers for myself."
He began the journey at age 4.
That's when he decided it was easier to bypass the flag and just send the kid into the dirt.
• • •
Kobe was born to Stacey and Da'on on February 12, 2001. His parents were young. They never married. He lived with his mother in Sulphur Springs, Texas, until seventh grade, then he moved to Paris, Texas, to live with his father.
"We've always been great teammates and co-parents," Da'on says.
Stacey loved to see Kobe run and play. Even if didn't grab the flag and went in for the kill. Kobe's first football coach told her, "This kid is crazy about football." Kobe stood by his coach. Kobe spoke to him so serious. He wanted to know everything about football.
"Kobe and I kind of grew up together," Stacey says. "I had him when I was young, so he helped me grow up. Just growing up, him seeing me struggle, I think that's made him even more tough. He worked so hard. Since he was a little boy, he's said, 'Mom, you're not going to have to worry about anything in life. I'm going to play in the NFL.'
"I don't even think he has a backup plan, to be honest."
Da'on saw 4-year-old Kobe tackle a boy.
"That's when I knew we have something on our hands here," Da'on says. "He had that aggressive nature at a young age. He's been a natural from day one."
When Kobe was 5, Stacey drove him 20 minutes outside of town to join a tackle-football team. He played on offense and defense. He loved to play everywhere on the field. He loved hitting people.
"He was so funny when he was little," she says.
• • •
South Dakota faced second-and-8 at its own 27-yard line midway through the first quarter in a season-opening game that K-State would win 34-0. Quarterback Carson Camp threw a short pass to a wide receiver named Javion Phelps near the K-State sideline. Phelps turned up field. Boom. Kobe laid into him and delivered a hit so devastating that it rocked Phelps into the K-State sideline. Kobe had flown in and slammed his right shoulder into Phelp's chest. And Phelps went down. Hard. The crowd at Bill Snyder Family Stadium yelled, "Whooooooo!"
"KOBE SAVAGE LAID THE WOOD ON THE WIDEOUT!" the TV commentator said.
It was the third possession of Kobe's first game as a Wildcat. He made his introduction to the college football world. Did he ever. He was different.
Joe Klanderman, K-State's defensive coordinator, stood on the sideline near the point of impact with his mouth wide open.
"It was right in front of me," Klanderman said, "and it as the most violent thing I've ever seen."
South Dakota punted.
• • •
Paris is a city of 25,000 people. It is in "Tornado Alley" and it is located 20 minutes from the Oklahoma state line. The city has a 65-foot Paris Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat at its summit. It has a "Jesus with Cowboy Boots" statue. It has the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial Museum. And it has football.
Kobe woke every morning at 6 a.m. He worked out with his high school quarterbacks coach at 6:30 a.m. This is how it went for several years.
"From seventh grade to 12th grade, Kobe never had a summer vacation," Da'on says. "They worked from August even through the summer. He never missed a day of workouts."
Kobe was a triple-option quarterback at Paris High School. He threw for 986 yards and rushed for 1,568 yards and scored 28 touchdowns. The summer before his senior year, everything changed. He moved to safety.
"It wasn't even a transition," Kobe says. "I just jumped over there. I didn't know anything."
He had 107 tackles, eight pass breakups, two interceptions and four tackles for a loss.
He helped Paris win district, bi-district and area championships.
"I know this sounds crazy," Stacey says, "but when Kobe gets on a team, whatever team it is — it's like he brings his whole morale and he brings a lot to the field — the team does well, and they succeed."
Kobe says that at 5-foot-11 and 206 pounds, he was undervalued and underrecruited. He signed with Texas A&M Commerce out of high school.
"I remember on Signing Day, he had a look on his face like, 'This isn't good enough,'" Da'on says. "I said, 'Kobe, it's your time, but it's not your turn.' So he went to A&M Commerce, and he redshirted, and he was ticked off, and he came to me and said, 'Dad, I want to go to juco.'
"Tyler Junior College put him into a great position to be a player. They took that boy to another level."
Kobe was 3 years old when Michael Bishop threw his final pass at K-State. Yet ask Kobe what initially drew him to K-State and he points to one of the greatest quarterbacks in K-State history.
"I remember seeing a quarterback, Michael Bishop, who came here from Blinn," he says. "It inspired me a lot knowing that he came here from the same conference I was in, and that he had a lot of success here."
Bishop, yes, Bishop was different, too.
• • •
Kobe's nickname is Hoss.
Both of his great-grandfathers were named Hoss. They were tough Texans.
"In Texas, 'Hoss' means you're the boss and do everything right," Kobe says. "That's what my family calls me."
"My dad has always called Kobe 'Hoss,'" Da'on says. "My daddy was raised by a man's man. We're tough guys, but we have that emotional side to us, and dad doesn't let that come out that much, but when it comes to Kobe, he can get emotional."
Da'on can get emotional over Kobe as well.
"Kobe has never given me any trouble a day in his life," Da'on says. "I whooped him when he was 2 years old and I think I cried more than he did."
Da'on didn't sit in the football players' parents section near the 30-yard line at Kobe's first K-State game. Da'on purchased his own ticket at the 50-yard line. He always sat at the 50 for Kobe's games. He decided it wasn't going to change now.
"And man, I sat on the 50 and he ran out for the first time pretty early for pregame, and man, I sat there and I cried like a baby," Da'on says. "Yep, I cried like a baby."
Somebody asked Kobe what he was going to do when he ran onto the field for the first time in a K-State uniform.
"Really, I'm just going to look for my mama first because that's the queen," Kobe said. "That's who I do all this for."
Stacey sat with the rest of the players' parents inside the stadium. Kobe knew where to look when he came out of the tunnel. He instantly pointed at her.
"I was thinking, my baby was once a baby and now he's a grown man playing this level of football," she says. "I don't know. Honestly, I can't describe the feeling."
• • •
"I'm too addicted to football," Kobe says, a wide grin creeping across his face as he stands inside the Vanier Family Football Complex on Tuesday. K-State will play Texas Tech at 11 a.m. Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. It'll be Kobe's next chance to send an opposing player into the turf. There's a method to the madness, really. And it begins with hours and hours of film study — a unflappable fascination that began in high school.
Kobe studies how players move around. He studies their tendencies, the quarterback's cadence, or the way that he stands if he's going to pass, or if he rubs his hands for a pass, or how the offensive line sits in stance for a run. That's just the beginning. There's much more to watching film. Kobe simply doesn't have time to explain everything.
"There's just something about it," Kobe says. "I just love watching it."
Sometimes, Kobe watches so much film that he gets tired and takes a nap inside the football facility. Then he wakes up and watches some more.
Sometimes, he turns Joe Klanderman's office into his own personal haven. He can talk ball with Klanderman for hours. That's what they did on Kobe's recruiting visit to K-State. They talked family. Then they talked ball. If Kobe had his way, he would earn his doctorate in talking ball.
"Sometimes, I'll go to Coach Klanderman's office and just look at the field, eat some M&M's and talk about football," Kobe says. "We'll talk about the gameplan, about what he sees for this week, and what's the best thing for our defense, just little things like that.
"I'm really addicted to football."
K-State head coach Chris Klieman, who played safety at Northern Iowa, loves Kobe for many reasons. He loves his personality. He loves his aggressiveness. He loves that Kobe loves football. Klieman remembers looking out his office window this past summer. Kobe was on the field doing drills in 90-degree heat. He did this all the time.
"If you track him for a day, that kid doesn't sit and he probably doesn't sleep a whole lot," Klieman says. "That kid is always doing something football related, whether it's recovery to doing extra drills in practice.
"It's fun because he's reaping the rewards, but he's put the work and the effort in. It's neat when a kid has the success that he surely has earned."
K-State first entered the picture for Kobe on December 4. That's when Kobe says he received a phone call from Klieman. Kobe and Tyler Junior College were about to play Coffeyville Community College in the Heart of Texas Bowl. Kobe says he called Klieman at halftime and said that he would call him after the game.
"They offered me on that bus and I was like, 'I'm ready to take a visit as soon as possible.'"
Kobe called his father. Only because he had to.
"Kobe is always wanting to surprise me and his mother," Da'on says. "We didn't know about it. I'd already bought at North Texas Mean Green t-shirt and hat because I thought my son was going to be right down the road. K-State called him and he didn't tell me immediately. Then he said, 'Daddy, get ready to go to Manhattan on Friday.'
"I smiled all week long. I don't think I've stopped smiling."
Klanderman says, "Kobe was just a tremendously under-recruited kid."
Kobe and his parents took an official visit on December 10. Five days later, he signed his letter-of-intent with K-State.
"I couldn't have dreamed of putting my son with a better group of coaches," Da'on says. "Klieman, that dude is awesome, man. When my grandkids come along, I hope he's still coaching.
"This whole thing has been a Godsend. We're God-fearing people. We love the Lord. We know this is all about the Lord. The Lord did this for our son. This is a blessing.
"Manhattan is a blessing for us."
• • •
Kobe remembers this: He had a message for his mom.
"I told my mom I wasn't going to come back without proving myself to everybody in this world and in this conference that I can play," he says.
And now?
"I'm just striving for bigger goals," he says, "and to improve every day."
What are Kobe's goals?
"I want it all."
There's a mantra that Stacey and Da'on instilled into their son at an early age: "Separate yourself."
"That's a big part of my life," he says. "I've always had competition. We could be tying our shoes to see who ties them faster. Little things like that are going to make a difference with big-time goals."
What has Kobe learned most about himself during his journey?
"I'd be nothing without Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior," he says. "I learned to be tough and to never let anything get to be because at the end of the day, things are going to happen for a reason. Everything is written, as I always tell my teammates. I've just learned to be tough and resilient through everything."
He certainly stands out.
Through four games, Kobe ranks second on the team with 23 total tackles. He picked off a pass in back-to-back games against Missouri and Tulane, ranking ninth in the FBS and tops in the Big 12 in total interceptions.
"He's going to be the type of guy who's always going to play hard, be locked in, and play with a bunch of intensity," Klanderman says.
Kobe has carried those traits with him since age 4. And now? He's separated himself. When he plays, man, he's a whole lotta different. And that will be benefit him and the Wildcats the rest of his K-State career.
"I've prayed for him from the time I've had him to today," Stacey says. "He's just a blessing. He really is a good kid."
She pauses.
"All I know is that boy is different."
It is a great kind of different.
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