By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

RALEIGH — This was a “thank you for our service” that Rowan County native and former U.S. Marine Mark Cauble will never forget.

Cauble recently became a surprised and grateful recipient of an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl. He was chosen as one of the honorees through the NFL’s Salute to Service initiative.

“I was floored,” Cauble said.

The guy handing over the two tickets to Cauble was more muscular than your run-of-the-mill delivery dude. It was Bijan Robinson, the Atlanta Falcons running back who was a first-round pick after starring at the University of Texas. Robinson was the 2022 Doak Walker Award winner, an honor that goes to the best collegiate running back.

“Bijan is a great guy, so it was really cool to have him come here, and the tickets are really just the start of this honor,” Cauble said. “There’s also airline tickets and hotel accommodations in Vegas.”

He’s going to be treated as a celebrity in Vegas, and why not? The men and women who have served are the real heroes.

Cauble is well-known to Rowan County baseball fans for the help he provided to coach Jim Gantt as assistant manager and manager of the Rowan Legion baseball program for many summers. Cauble moved up from there, He has become the Legion baseball chairman for all of North Carolina, work that has relocated him to Raleigh.

Not that he regrets the move to the state capitol.

“I get to do something I love every day, so it really doesn’t feel like work,” Cauble said. “I also feel like it’s a job that I can do well. Everyone tells me I won’t be able to stay away from Rowan County for long. Well, I will be coming back there to be buried someday. Generations of my family have been buried in the cemetery at Union Lutheran Church on Bringle Ferry Road.”

Hopefully, that won’t happen for quite a while yet. Cauble still has plenty of work to do.

Last August, he represented American Legion Baseball for pre-game ceremonies in Texas when Rangers shortstop Corey Seager, who played for Kannapolis Post 115, was honored as the American Legion Baseball Graduate of the Year. That’s an honor that includes both performance on the field and community service.

“Corey signed some baseballs for me and posed for pictures,” Cauble said. “That wasn’t very hard work for me.”

Cauble also has been to the World Series as a representative of American Legion baseball. He served as a chaperone for the team that won the American Legion World Series.

The direction of Cauble’s life started taking shape when he was a student at South Rowan High. As much as he liked athletics, his real passion was the school’s ROTC program.

“I always had interest in a military career, and then my ROTC instructors at South — John Burke and Gerald Ofsanko — were two of the most influential people in my life, great mentors,” Cauble said. “Six days after I graduated from high school in 1990, I joined the Marines.”

He attended Security Forces School and became a Marine security guard. His first deployment was to Panama. He was one of 20,000 U.S. troops sent to that country during a tense time after an American operation to oust General Manuel Noriega from power.

Cauble was in some hot spots in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East as a mortarman and weapons platoon sergeant. He was part of operations in Kuwait, Somalia, South Korea, and Bosnia. He’s modest about it, but he saw combat action. He earned some medals.

He was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1999.

About five years later, he became involved with Rowan County American Legion baseball.

As far as football, he grew up an Atlanta Falcons fan in the days before the Carolina Panthers were a thing. He even attended some Falcon games as a youngster.

When he returned to civilian life, the Panthers, who were born in 1995, joined the Falcons as his favorite clubs. The Panthers were, after all, the local team.

The Falcons and Panthers weren’t Super Bowl material this year, but that doesn’t mean Cauble, who will be flying out with his girlfriend on Friday so he can be recognized in some special ceremonies, will be neutral in Vegas.

“I’ll be all about those San Francisco 49ers,” he said with a laugh. “They’ve got (former Panther back) Christian McCaffrey and they’ve got (former Panthers coach) Steve Wilks as defensive coordinator. And they’ve got Javon Hargrave, who went to North Rowan.”

Cauble has watched the Super Bowl annually on TV like most sports fans and had figured that would be the case again this year.

“It’s funny, but my girlfriend and I were in Vegas not that long ago and we were wondering about how much Super Bowl tickets would cost. When I looked up the prices, I just laughed. No way I could ever afford something like that.”

The average ticket currently is about $10,000, and that’s just for a ticket. That doesn’t include the hotel or the flight.

But then Cauble got a surprise visit from Bijan Robinson on Monday, Jan. 29. He had met Robinson a few weeks ago for the first time when Robinson had visited Chapel Hill, and they had hit it off.

Robinson embraced him, shook his hand, thanked him for his service and handed him two tickets.

So will be one more item scratched off Cauble’s bucket list.

“It was pretty nice to be able to call up my girlfriend and say, ‘Hey, how would you like to go to the Super Bowl?'” Cauble said. “She’s a veteran, too.”