This Retired Highland Spanish Teacher Will Be Attending Super Bowl LVI Thanks to Former Students – Orange County Register

On Football Sunday in the 1960s, Pablo Robertson and his father did a sport retreat to their 1961 Chevy Biscayne behind church to catch Los Angeles Rams radio game while Mother Robertson chatted with other parishioners.

This football Sunday, Robertson, now 71, and his son will be a little closer to the action.

A beloved retired Upland High School Spanish teacher, Robertson will head to the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Sunday, February 13, to watch his Rams play the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.

And he has generations of old students to thank.

Dozens of Upland graduates from the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 2010s raised more than $10,000 this past week on GoFundMe to send their beloved old mentor to their first Super Bowl. he.

Attending the final game of any football season, let alone including his favorite team, “never really happens because the cost is so high,” Robertson said. learned Thursday while driving home from Los Angeles with his newly purchased Rams Super Bowl equipment beside him. “All my former students, I love each and every one of them. I am humbled by the whole thing.

“Withering.”

Born in New York in 1950, Robertson grew up a Giants fan who spent Sundays glued to his parents’ black and white television. More than 60 years later, the original New Yorker still remembers watching Johnny Unitas’ Baltimore Colts beat Frank Gifford’s Giants, 23-17, in the 1958 NFL Championship Game.

However, moving to California around 1960 changed the boy’s union.

Powerful bass. Roman Gabriel. Robertson loves all things blue and yellow.

“From then on,” he said, “I was a 100 per cent loyal fan of the Rams.”

Robertson, a Highland High alum, began teaching Spanish at his alma mater in 1979 and quickly became ingrained in the campus community.

Sarah Wolfgramm, a 1993 graduate student at Upland, recalls being amazed at all the Rams memorabilia in her former teacher’s classroom when she first walked in. But beyond the banners, flags, pictures and merchandise, Wolfgramm said this week, Robertson has poured a lot of heart into his students.

As Wolfgramm recalls, suppose a kid needed more time to complete his schoolwork, or wanted to improve his test scores—Robertson was more than likely.

If you fall and fail, his philosophy went, you go back and try again until you finish what you wanted to do.

“He doesn’t just teach Spanish,” says Wolfgramm. “He is teaching about life and life lessons and life skills. Spanish is just a skill that we learn alongside the most important lessons.

“I get emotional just thinking about it.”

For decades, Robertson has spent weekday afternoons shooting and developing photographs of his students at rallies and sporting events. The photos he ended up not giving to those kids ended up on the bulletin board in his classroom, a living yearbook of highland excellence.

“My players taught me a lot,” said Robertson, who, in 1994, started doing game-by-match when announcing at sporting events in Upland, a gig he still holds. have to this day. “Their sense of humor, their motivation, it’s a common situation where we both have a positive impact on each other.

“I love teaching Spanish, I love children, I love photography, I love announcements,” he continued. “Teaching is an ideal career for me.”

Ten years after retiring, Robertson, a Rams season ticket holder who was unable to get a Super Bowl LVI ticket through two lotteries, set out to watch his team compete for the franchise’s second Lombardi Cup from the throne. his upland home.

His former students had other plans.

On the eve of Super Bowl week, Laura Salcedo, whom Robertson taught in 2003, made her debut a GoFundMe . page to send him to the game.

Within three days, there was enough money to buy tickets.

In addition to the generous donations, Robertson said this week he cherishes the comments of former colleagues and students he remembers, but hasn’t spoken to in years.