Fullerton’s Strobel Improves With Age

Bryan Strobel, at 6 feet 7 and 330 pounds, looks like a guy who has been playing football all his life. But that isn’t the case. He played in junior high but is the son of missionaries and attended three high schools in three years, so he wasn’t in one place long enough to become part of a team.

Now, the 26-year-old is in his second season as a starting offensive tackle at Fullerton College.

His size and developing skills have generated interest from four-year colleges, but Strobel has more important commitments.

“No matter what, this is definitely my last year of college football,” Strobel said. “If nothing else, I can always look back and say that I gave it a shot. This is what I was looking for. You sit and you wonder, but now I can say that I gave it a try.”

Strobel’s commitments start with his wife, Jessica. Besides attending classes and playing football, he also works full time running a shipping and receiving department for a machine shop that serves an international market. He starts work weekdays at 5:30 a.m., gets to Fullerton about 2 p.m. and goes right into football meetings and then to practice. He also has class three nights a week. The couple is also expecting their first child in early November.

“To say the least,” Strobel said, “my plate is full. . . . Sometimes in the locker room I will hear the other players talk about how tired they are. I ask them what time they got up and they say ’10 a.m.’ I just laugh.”

Strobel enrolled at Fullerton College not because he knew anything about the school or its football coach, Gene Murphy, but because it’s 10 minutes from his home. He didn’t contact anyone in the Fullerton football program ahead of time either.

He just showed up in a football class one spring.

“I’ve had a busload of these guys but the majority never make it,” Murphy said. “I had my doubts that he would finish spring practice. But all he asked for was an opportunity.

“Now, he gets better with every game he plays because that’s one more game he’s played.”

Strobel asked to play defense when he first joined the team. Murphy was sure he was better suited to be an offensive lineman, but agreed because Strobel wasn’t looking for a scholarship at a four-year school.

“But I always told him,” Murphy said, “with that wingspan, you could really be good on offense.”

Fullerton started last season with six healthy offensive linemen, and three weeks into the season, Strobel was moved to offense because of injuries. He went along with it because he wasn’t playing much on defense and this meant he would be in the game more.

“On a Monday,” Strobel said, “I went from playing only on PAT block to starting on offense. I had no idea what I was doing. I remember taking home the playbook and had no idea what it meant. It could have been in Japanese.”

Strobel learned as the season went along and benefited from playing next to sophomore guard Jason Shields.

“I was fortunate,” Strobel said, “he was there to tell me what to do.”

Strobel needed such assistance because his high school career never got started.

He went to high schools in Hawaii, Oregon and Northern California, finally graduating from Terra Nova High in Pacifica in 1990. He wrestled and played some basketball in high school and planned to play football at College of San Mateo after high school.

But a few weeks before classes started, Strobel found out he was going to be charged out-of-state fees because he hadn’t been in California for a year. His parents were in the Philippines. He was living with his brother, paying rent and working full time as the manager of a pizza parlor, so the added expense didn’t seem worth it.

He just kept working and eventually planned to move to Portland and go into business with a cousin, who instead joined the Navy. Strobel followed in the spring of 1992.

He got out of the Navy after two years and soon was married. At the time, football wasn’t in his thoughts at all.

His plan was to become a police officer and he came close with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, partly because he made such a good first impression.

“I hit [the top of my] head on the door walking into the interview,” Strobel said, “and the guy doing the interview said, ‘I want him as my backup.’ ”

Strobel said he was weeks away from getting a job offer when an unexpected disqualification notice came in the mail--a few weeks after he and his wife bought a house in Fullerton.

“They said it was a credit issue over some late payments when I was in the Navy,” Strobel said. “It was a shock and it really hit me hard.”

With one plan dashed, he started looking for a job and went to work for Monson Machine. In the course of a work day, he was often asked if had played football but wasn’t pushed into action until one day someone said he was too old to play anyway.

He has proven that he can and then some. And this season, because of injuries to defensive linemen, he’s getting the chance to play lineman both ways.

“I’m very happy with what I’m doing,” Strobel said. “If I wasn’t happy, I wouldn’t be doing it because it’s a stress on my wife and my life in general.”