Bobby Rodriguez grew up in a different era of Arizona football. The Dick Tomey era. He remembers feeling the ground shake inside Arizona Stadium after Tedy Bruschi sacked the opposing quarterback. The sound of roaring Wildcats fans. He remembers a time when the Territorial Cup rivalry felt a little more personal. He misses those days dearly, that old-school hard-nosed feel.
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Rodriguez was there for all of it. Momma had season tickets, and he became the biggest beneficiary. Being around the teams in his earlier days essentially shaped the man he has become today. It gave him purpose. He remembers lingering around Arizona Stadium after games, trying his hardest to get an up-close look at some of the Pac-10’s finest. Maybe he’d get a wrist band or a helmet decal from a player or two if he was lucky. Cornerback Chris McAlister was his favorite. McAlister was a unanimous All-America selection in 1998 and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens. He was kind enough to dap Rodriguez up after every home game during his time in Tucson. One day, McAlister even gave him a game-worn Nike glove. Rodriguez will never forget those moments.
These days that glove is more of an artifact in Rodriguez’s collection of sports paraphernalia. But he’ll never forget that gesture of kindness.
“This dude used to take half the field away on defense,” Rodriguez says of McAlister. “There were just certain Arizona athletes that stood out to me, and he was one of them. This dude had veins on his nose. He just didn’t look human. He was super fast, super athletic, and he’s probably my favorite Wildcat of all time.”
Rodriguez, now 31, always wanted suit up for the Wildcats, and he got his chance. His playing days are long over. He has remained loyal to Arizona and the Tucson community and found a new passion training athletes of all ages at his gym, JET Sports Training, along with the rest of his team. And during this global pandemic, he has given back to the same football program he grew up admiring by ensuring its players who stuck around town are in shape and prepared for whenever football does return.
If Arizona gets off to a fast start in 2020, Rodriguez will have been an integral part of its success. “I always tell the guys that no matter what happens, stay ready,” he says.
There’s a most interesting man in the world quality to Rodriguez’s story. He grew up a block from the rodeo grounds on the south side of Tucson, and he dreamed of becoming a cowboy. He did it — winning at least one event as a child as a Mutton buster, and participating in six PBR events in the last three years. He earned the “Jet” nickname as a high school football player. “I took a 98-yard interception to the house, straight down the sideline,” Rodriguez says. “It was one of those bang-bang plays at the end, so I had to dive headfirst like Sean Taylor’s game-winning fumble return against the Eagles back in 2006. I just did the same thing, and all of a sudden they started calling me Bobby ‘the Jet’ Rodriguez.”
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The Jet topped out at 5-foot-7 and 145 pounds, however, and despite winning a couple of high school state titles, he spent a year at Pima Community College before joining the Wildcats as a walk-on. He never cracked the game-day roster, but he credits Mark Stoops, now the coach at Kentucky, for giving him a chance. Willie Tuitama was Rodriguez’s roommate that first season, Robert Golden was a good friend and Rodriguez was on the 2008 team that broke Arizona’s decade-long bowl drought. And Rodriguez learned to love the weight room, which would soon come in handy.
When his time at Arizona was over, he went to Brazil and picked up Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It took less of a toll on his body. And was the case with rodeo and football, Rodriguez proved to be a natural at this sport too. In no time, he was competing against elite competition and earned a bronze medal in the 2015 Brazilian jiu-jitsu World Championships.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu, however, still didn’t completely scratch his competitive itch the way training did. But there wasn’t a gym anywhere near where he was living in Brazil. So Rodriguez would get his workouts in at a beach that had nothing but a pull-up bar and a small bench. Still, he made the most of it. He would do bench dips, pull-ups, push-ups and chin-ups. He brought along a set of cones for agility circuit training.
As the days went on, locals taking runs along the shoreline would notice Rodriguez working out in a manner they weren’t familiar with. They’d ask him what he was doing. Rodriguez didn’t reveal his secrets, instead inviting them to join his workout and find out for themselves.
“Next thing you know, there were two people out on the beach training with me,” he says. “Then 10, then 20, then it would be as many as 25 people out there doing the circuit with me. I was working at a school during that time, and my godmother that I was living with, she would see how unhappy I was going to work everyday. But when I came home, ate a little something and got ready to go back to the beach, she would see how excited I was and the passion I had. She told me when I got back to the States, that’s what I needed to do because it made me happy.”
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That’s exactly what Rodriguez did when he returned to Tucson in 2014. JET Sports Training was born. He began training kids at Quincie Douglas Park. And just like in Brazil, one client turned into 10, then 15. It kept growing.
“And I noticed the moms who would just sit there and watch their kids, so I told them I could train them when I was done,” Rodriguez says. “So it turned into a boot camp at the park, and then that exploded. I finally said, now I needed my own spot.”
When the pandemic hit, Rodriguez had the foresight to reach out to Arizona junior receiver Drew Dixon, another Tucson product. He told Dixon that if he needed a place to train with Arizona’s on-campus facilities shut down, he could call JET Sports Training his temporary home. Dixon came in, and Rodriguez put him through a rigorous workout. Impressed, Dixon told one of his teammates about Rodriguez’s methods. That teammate then told two more and so on, and suddenly, word of JET Sports Training spread like a wildfire among the Wildcats.
“Next thing you know I got damn near half the squad in here working out during the pandemic,” Rodriguez says. “We had so many players that I had to do three sessions because I just didn’t want the guys piling up on each other obviously because of social distancing. A lot of them are back at school now, but for a solid two, 2½ months, they were getting work in here. I felt like it was important work because obviously that’s my alma mater, I want them to do well. But on the flip side, I’ve had some kids from ASU come too. I told them let’s do it. I wasn’t going to be that guy and tell them not to come regardless of the rivalry.”
Each of Rodriguez’s sessions with players lasted about an hour. They did upper body days. Plyometric days. Lower body days were focused on explosive movement from the ground up. Hip and shoulder mobility is key. It helps players stay healthy and agile throughout a grueling season.
“Everything we do translates to football, whether that’s lateral movements or linear movements,” Rodriguez says. “I’m not going to make them do 360s unless they plan on doing Tony Gonzalez dunks on the goal post. We keep a fast pace; there’s not a lot of down time. There’s not too much talking going on. We just put our heads down and work. Everyone is never not doing anything.”
JET Sports Training employs coaches for specific workouts and athletes: a former San Diego State offensive lineman works with the lineman, a professional body-builder for Olympic-style lifting, and a baseball/softball coach who can help with joint mobility. Rodriguez kept Arizona football strength coach Brian Johnson in the loop, sendinga short text explaining the workout scripts for a specific week. Rodriguez would ask him if there was anything he wanted to see from a certain player, or if there was anything he could do better. Johnson rarely offered any feedback. “It was good the guys had somewhere to go and train with someone with that kind of experience,” he says.
Side-by-side photos show Dixon’s progress this spring. (Courtesy of Bobby Rodriguez)
Rodriguez says every Wildcat who has walked through his door this summer has put in solid work. Some, of course, have stood out.
“Grant Gunnell, he’s going to make some noise this year at the quarterback position,” Rodriguez says. “On our plyometric days, we’ll do linear and lateral bounds, jumping off one foot, landing on one foot, stuff like that. I’d say, ‘Hey, Grant. Why don’t you step over to the side and do a different movement?’ He’ll be like, nah, I want to do what they’re doing. And for being 6-foot-6, he’s an athlete. He can move; he has good body control. So now we have a routine going where I’m not worried about him jumping in with the receivers because he’s definitely capable of doing it.
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“Drew Dixon hasn’t missed a workout. He’s put in a lot of good work. I’m excited to see this JuCo transfer Stacey Marshall. His JuCo coach was my JuCo coach at Pima. He’s 6-foot-5, 248 pounds. He’s the ideal NFL tight end. We talked about him getting used to this dry heat since he’s from Montgomery, Ala. There’s no AC in our gym, so I told him this is how his first two games are going to feel at Arizona Stadium. It gets like 130 degrees down there — it’s super hot, super uncomfortable, so might as well get used to it now. He’s made some gains, and I really feel like he can make some noise at the tight end position this year.”
Rodriguez wants JET Sports Training to become the premier headquarters for elite athletes in the area and others athletes around the country. He doesn’t want a local athlete to have to travel to Texas or California to get ready for a combine. He wants to get to the point where he and his team can handle all of their fitness needs.
“This city means a lot to me because I was born and raised here,” Rodriguez says. “I’m 31 years old, and for 29 years of life, I’ve called Tucson home. The city is me. Tucson is known as a tough city, rough around the edges. Not that I would ever flaunt that, but it’s inside of me. I’m proud to say that I’m an alumnus of the University of Arizona. And that means a lot, because a lot of people from my neighborhood didn’t have the opportunity or the resources to go to college. That’s why Tucson means a lot to me. So whenever anybody talks foul about Tucson, I take it personally.”
And should Arizona have a season that meets or exceeds expectations, he can know he did his part.
(Top photo of Bobby Rodriguez, far right, and multiple Arizona football players: Courtesy of Bobby Rodriguez)
