Isaiah Cozzolino has been playing sports since he was 4 years old, but his first athletc events happened considerably before that.
They came from inside the womb of his mother Lisette Cozzolino (maiden name Gallegos) when she was running track at Burlingame High and pregnant with Isaiah. She set a school record at three months pregnant, prompting coach Steve (Obbie) O’Brien to now tell her there should be an asterisk by the record because of the extra cargo she was carrying.
It seems like Isaiah Cozzolino has been competing ever since and he’s now a three-sport star (football, basketball and baseball at Hillsdale High. Last Friday night in a 47-31 victory against visiting Sequoia, he had two catches for 82 yards and two touchdowns.
“I’ve been playing multiple sports since I was 4,” Cozzolino said. “Soccer, basketball, baseball – I grew up going to practices and games. If I’m not playing a game or practicing, I get anxious and I have to go out and run the track.”
That’s easy for Cozzolino since he lives across the street from Hillsdale, though earlier he lived in South San Francisco and Burlingame. While his mom was a track star at Burlingame High and the College of San Mateo, his step-father Matthew Cozzolino and Matthew’s brother Anthony were football and baseball players at Serra.
Matthew met Lisette when the two were at CSM.
“I ran track for College of San Mateo right before entering the nursing program and my husband was on the baseball team,” Lisette said. “The fields were next to each other. My husband introduced himself to me and the rest is history.”
Matthew and Isaiah are as tight as a drum.
“He and his dad have a strong relationship,” Lisette said. “Some of his friends don’t even know that Matthew is not his biological father.”
The Hillsdale star also has a cousin, Gabbi Cozzolino, who is a star volleyball player at Half Moon Bay High. Her family is big in the pumpkin business, as owners of the colorful 4 C's Ranch on Highway 92. .
On the athletic fields and courts of Hillsdale, Isaiah Cozzolino is no pumpkin. His unusual height (he’s 6-foot-5) and speed help him in football where last season he made 40 catches for 837 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also averaged 10 points and five rebounds per game last season in basketball and hit .323 in baseball.
He’s no chump in the classroom either, checking in with a respectable 2.8 grade point average.
Perhaps most impressive of all, the Knight star is an ideal big brother, watching out for his two little siblings Matthew (2) and Isabella (1).
“Isaiah is a perfect big brother,” Lisette said. “He helps around the house and is calm and can talk to his little brother. He can put the kids to bed better than we can. He’s a good kid.”
Hillsdale football coach Mike Parodi has no complaints. Cozzolino's clutch catches and big plays helped Hillsdale win the PAL-Ocean last season.
“He’s 6-5 and that helps," Parodi said. "He’s also from a family of athletes and plays three sports. He does great things on the field and is a good student off of it.”
Of course, nobody is perfect. So imagine Cozzolino’s surprise when he was marked tardy for his first day of school as a freshman at Hillsdale.
“It all started shortly before freshman year when we moved to San Mateo right across the street from the school,” Lisette said. “Isaiah was not only excited about high school, but thrilled with not having to walk too far. So the week before his first day, we joked with him about not having an excuse for being late to school. But, much to our surprise, he was caught with a frantic look as he ran across the street 15 minutes after the bell rung.”
