Longtime local sports mainstay Cottle silently steps aside

He was considered one of the good guys, having spent more than 30 years quietly toiling in the margins of local sports to help make them better.

So when Terry Cottle recently decided to step aside as coordinator of development and events at the College of Southern Nevada following three decades as a coach and administrator at UNLV, it only figured he would do that quietly, too.

“I had some health problems and they weren’t getting better,” Cottle, 61, said of medical issues he described as non-life-threatening. “I wasn’t planning on retiring. I’ve got four kids, four grandkids. Had to get better, you know?

“I’m feeling great now.”

The former Saint Mary’s College quarterback was a UNLV assistant under Harvey Hyde and Wayne Nunnely and would go on to perform myriad tasks within the program. His primary titles were recruiting coordinator, director of football operations and associate athletic director who also oversaw baseball, tennis, track and field and cross country.

“They say if you can do something you love and are passionate about, you’re really lucky,” Cottle said. “Over the course of 30 years, you meet a lot of great people.”

Though he wasn’t part of many winning football seasons at UNLV, the mild-mannered Cottle managed to take the Rebels’ lack of success in stride, much as he did everything else in his sporting world.

“When you win, it’s great; when you lose, you feel like you let people down,” he said, adding that he hasn’t ruled out returning to the sidelines, or to their periphery. But for now, the only thing he’s planning to administer from a sporting standpoint is a swimming pool session with the grandkids.

‘Teaching them how to ride bikes and swim and some of that stuff,” he said when asked what’s next and how much he was looking forward to it.

Around the horn

— Gone but not forgotten: Deposed Lights FC coach Eric Wynalda took to Twitter this week to comment on the six-year anniversary of pro soccer underlings Atlanta Silverbacks knocking off MLS’ Colorado Rapids in the U.S. Cup despite finishing with only eight players after four players and three coaches — including himself— were ejected.

“Craziest game I’ve ever been part of — incredible result — remarkable circumstance,” responded Eric the Red (Card).

— Former motorcycle racing champion Miguel Duhamel, who was pictured on the program cover and finished third in the first American Motorcycle Association Superbike race held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, was shot in the head by what he believed to be a pellet gun while riding his road bicycle near Red Rock Canyon recently.

Duhamel, who finished second in the 1996 Superbike championship and now makes his home in Las Vegas, was bloodied but not seriously injured after hearing an air gun disperse from a passing vehicle, according to a story first reported by KVVU-TV Channel 5.

— During a 2017 interview at the Red Rock Open, a local pro tennis tournament, Allie Kiick talked emotionally about her relationship with father Jim, the former Miami Dolphins running back who was suffering from the ravages of Alzheimer’s, the disease that claimed his life at age 73 on June 20.

Her dad was Butch Cassidy to Larry Csonka’s Sundance Kid when they galloped for big yards and notoriety while playing in Don Shula’s backfield, and Allie Kiick blushed several times when asked how she would describe her dad’s iconic mustache that contributed to those outlaw analogies.

“It was a different generation back then, so I guess it was cool,” she finally said with the kind of bashful smile one never forgets.

— A mention of Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump site in last weekend’s story on the future of minor league baseball in Idaho solicited a social media response from a man named Jim McCaw, who said the jump site was hardly noticeable and a plaque on a bridge commemorating the brazen jump had fallen into disrepair when he visited it three years ago.

The second part of that description mostly describes the famous daredevil during his latter years as a resident of Las Vegas. The first part, about hardly being noticeable? Not a chance.

0:01

Michael Rosenberg, senior writer at Sports Illustrated, on Major League Baseball’s abridged 60-game season:

“Call me a hopeless romantic, but I am going to enjoy both weeks of this baseball season.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.