By: Dan Sousa
Leesburg (June 26, 2007) – When Heritage High School cross country coach Matt Oblas gathered his runners recently to let them know that he wouldn’t be returning to the Pride program he built into a winner, it was a tough moment, but nothing compared to what Oblas went through this spring.
A five-mile-a-day runner who regularly runs 5K’s, half marathons and even marathons, Oblas became ill in early March. At first he had minor flu-like symptoms, but soon he was throwing up blood and he couldn’t even stand up.
He headed to the emergency room at Inova Loudoun Hospital on March 17 and didn’t check out until 42 days later.
“It has been a crazy couple of months, but I’m a lot better now,” said Oblas who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease of the large intestine.
“Emotionally I was up and down.”
The term “life-threatening” can get tossed around sometimes, but Oblas and his wife Jen, a teacher and cross country coach at Stone Bridge, were confronted with that fact as the doctors could not find a treatment to combat the disease. By late April Oblas’ colon had swelled from its normal size of 1.5 centimeters to 14 centimeters.
“The doctors said one night that it was about to rupture and if it did I could die instantly,” said Oblas.
Finally major surgery on April 24 took care of the problem but not before Oblas lost 50 pounds – dropping all the way to 140 pounds from the 190 prior to the illness.
“I couldn’t even stand up or walk,” said Oblas.
Faith, family and friends helped Oblas make it through his ordeal. Not only does his wife teach in Loudoun but his father William is the principal at Loudoun County, his mother Sally just retired this year as the school nurse at Stone Bridge, he will have two sisters teaching at Heritage this fall and he has a brother-in-law that works for the school district’s administration.
Simply put, Oblas is a name synonymous with education in Loudoun. It is the type of family with a dedication to public service that builds a better community.
And Oblas had all the support of those from his church, the kids he has coached and the running community. I had the pleasure of attending the Heritage cross country banquet last fall and you could see how much the runners and their parents cared for Oblas and his staff.
“There were a lot of visitors,” Oblas recalled. “One nurse said: “Who are you? Are you somebody famous’?”
As he recovered from the surgery, Oblas was facing another life change as he applied for and accepted the assistant athletic director’s positions at Freedom. Of course, that would mean leaving coaching just after he had led the Heritage girls to a AA Dulles District title and third place finishes at both the Region II and state meets.
“It was definitely hard to do but I knew at some point I wanted to make that jump,” said Oblas. “We have really good kids at Heritage and it is hard to walk away from that, but they are in good hands with Doug Gilbert taking over.”
Oblas has been teaching in Loudoun for six years and a summer ago he finished his certification in school administration. He officially starts at Freedom on July 31. Just before that he will have one more surgery as part of his recovery process. The good news is that the illness is gone and he has gained back 30 of those 50 pounds lost, but he has a long road to get back to his marathon shape.
“I did six minutes on the treadmill the other day and it almost killed me,”
Oblas said with a laugh.
You can bet that there will be more people in Loudoun than you can count, cheering for Oblas every step of the way.
Processing your request, Please wait....
