Like many young athletes, AP World History teacher Isiah Cabal dreamt of growing up and playing in the NBA.
“When I was younger, I was pretty good at basketball, and then when I was in middle school, I was convinced I was going to be the first Filipino to make it to the NBA,” Cabal said.
Although he trained every day to become the next Michael Jordan, his plans took an unforeseen halt when he realized the
other boys were twice his height. He turned to football and succeeded because he was speedy and small, but as everyone grew up, he was left behind.
“Everyone had grown, and I’m Filipino and I had pretty much stopped growing,” Cabal said.
Instead, with the advice of Cabal’s football coach, he found wrestling as a viable option where height was not an issue. Leaving behind the team-based sports of football and basketball, he changed to wrestling which focused on the one-on-one aspect —something he ended up loving. Soon, Cabal’s athletic goals completely shifted to wrestling.
“The times that I did win, those were always great,” Cabal said. “The feeling of all that hard work finally paid off. There’s just
something that you get from wrestling that you cannot get from anything else, and that is one-on-one competition and just figuring out I can be better than this other person today.”
As he continued wrestling, he won a lot and gained attention from a lot of colleges. At a massive wrestling tournament that he
attended, he beat the state champs. He then committed to the University of Missouri and then transferred to the University of Central Florida, where he wrestled for all four years.
“So I wasn’t a great collegiate wrestler,” Cabal said. “I was for high school, but college was a whole different beast.”
His wrestling background led him to his teaching and coaching career. Cabal became the first-ever wrestling coach at Hagerty High School, where he coached both wrestling and football for 13 years. Then, he moved to Lake Howell, where he was also the head wrestling coach.
“The best part of coaching was taking the kid who’s never wrestled before and seeing them grow and mature and achieve success,” Cabal said.
Cabal’s love of coaching extended to the classroom.
“I think a good practice plan is structured the same way a good lesson plan should be structured,” Cabal said. “There are different components, and just like teaching and coaching, you analyze the results.”
He moved to Trinity in 2018 after he heard the AP World History spot was opened. He found great love in teaching this class and moved to refereeing instead of coaching.
“My favorite times of refering is for UFC because I referee people from the UFC and see as they grow and go into pro-fighters,” Cabal said.
He referees mixed martial arts and kickboxing two to four times a week.
“There’s a quote from Dan Gable,” Cabal said. “‘Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.”
