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We play W.S. Neal this week and it is always a tough week. It has been a hard fought rivalry and it is always the most important game of the year to me. Success against Neal is always important and no coach at Miller ever had more success against the Eagles than my high school coach Frank Cotten.
Coach Cotten came to Brewton about 1966 as basketball coach and assistant football coach. They assigned him to the junior high school and he taught P.E. and history. I was a junior high student in those days and I spent a lot of time around him. I loved every day of it. He was a funny guy and was always carrying on with us about all kind of things. We learned in a hurry that if you messed something up he could put a chewing on you. He had this stare where his eyes would get big and it would just pierce right through you. We also learned that he could swing a pretty mean paddle. No one messed with Coach Cotten at Brewton Junior High School in those days. There was no air conditioning and the old school had these huge windows. Coach would push them open and sit up in the window during history class. He had problems pronouncing some of the countries and sometimes it was pretty funny. We were studying about the Indians that lived in Peru and he would call them the "Purdue Indians." We would take a test and he would get some of the smart girls in our class to grade the multiple choice questions. He would always finish with a discussion question and would tell the girls "I will grade those." After a while we noticed that everyone got the discussion question correct (it was always a bonus question). So one day we all decided to write something like "Hey Coach, do you really read these or do you just automatically give us credit because we have studied but we might not know the answer to this one." And in red ink he wrote "+10". I can still see him shooting free throws in the old gym. He was amazing. He could stand there and make them over and over again. He could shoot 30 or 40 in a row and make them. He was the basketball coach and we would go to the games and sit right behind him on the bench. He always had a towel and he would slam the towel down and chew out all of the players. And the referees. He would laugh and joke with them before the game but when it started he chewed on them the whole time. They never would call a technical foul on him no matter what he said. We could hardly wait until we got to the high school and we could play for him.
I arrived at T.R. Miller High School in the fall of 1970 and Coach Cotten arrived with us to teach drivers ed. There are many stories about him as drivers ed teacher. Coach was a full time tobacco chewer and he would have a chaw at anytime. One day they had stopped to change drivers and Coach rolled down the window to spit and spit on this girls leg. That was pretty funny. Coach Cotten was well known for being stingy. In the summer we would be working around the stadium and he would give me a dollar and say "Go put some gas in my car." Granted gas was only 30 cents a gallon but those old cars in the early 70's got about 12 miles to the gallon. He was Coach Wood's primary assistant and when Coach Wood would chew on you and Coach Cotten would see you at school the next day and build you up and tell you how good you were or were going to be. You always wanted to do something at practice to please him and get a compliment from him. He made going to practice tolerable everyday. Larry Rampey was our head coach in 1972 and about three months after the season was killed in a car accident. It was a very tough time at Miller and when our superintendent Dale Garner made Coach Cotten our head coach it made things much better. I was about to be a senior and I was excited to play for him. We changed our offense and I can remember how nervous he was before the first game. I told my Mother that I was afraid if the first game didn't hurry up and get there Coach was going to have a heart attack. But playing for Coach Cotten was great. He had some kind of inspirational stuff for us all the time and he made me a much better player. He would give these talks on pride or toughness or courage and it was just brilliant. We had a great year. We went 10-2 and made it to the semi finals of the playoffs.
Coach Cotten was a tremendous defensive coach because defense in those days was mostly about motivating players. In all of the years I have been in football I have never seen a coach that could get players to play above their ability like Frank Cotten. Donnie Rotch always told me that Coach Cotten would take some little ole kid and tell him how good he was and then give him some impossible task. "You are going to get low and whip this double team and tackle the dive back. If the QB keeps the ball you going to let the dive back go and tackle the QB." And then on Friday night the kid would actually do it. He could take somebody that didn't look like a football player and get him to do amazing things. In those days the defense at T.R. Miller played like their hair was on fire. Every Friday night was an emotional experience. In eight years as head coach he never lost a game to W.S. Neal, despite Neal having some real good teams.
When I was in college and preparing to become a coach I went by to see him one day. He gave me only one piece of advice. "If you can get them to play hard for you every Friday night, you will always be okay." It summed up his whole coaching philosophy in one sentence. In the spring of 1979 I was in my first season of coaching and I went to the Auburn coaching clinic. I was a little bit in awe of all of these great high school coaches everywhere. Coach Cotten was there and it seemed like he knew everyone. I was excited to spend a little time with him and it made me feel like I was somebody when I was talking to him. He retired from coaching after the 1980 season. I was coaching in Mobile that year and I came up to watch the Tigers play Atmore on a Saturday night. Atmore had been playing with all of the big schools in Mobile and we beat them that night. I remember how proud I was to be from T.R. Miller. The defense played that night like their hair was on fire.
Coach Cotten became a school administrator and later principal at T.R. Miller. When I arrived back here in 1989 to become head coach he was my principal. It doesn't get any better than that. He was excited about me becoming coach and his support was incredible. He was always talking to our players and trying to pump them up for the games. Most every one knows that he became a member of the Brewton City Council and has sold many cars working for Peach Ford. He is a member of the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.
I could not have had better training to become a coach. Frank Cotten had an effect on my attitude and he taught me a lot about dealing with people. I learned from him that football was more about people than it was about plays and defenses. It was a game about effort and if your team gave the greatest effort possible, they could have a chance to win regardless of the opponent. He taught me to believe in the impossible, to believe in your players and to believe that the T.R. Miller spirit was something special. He made football fun for me in the 1970's and gave me a high school football experience that was second to none.
A few years ago I was speaking at a coaching clinic and there was 400 or 500 coaches in the audience. I had time for one more question and a young coach in the front row asked me this. "You have had great success at T.R. Miller for many years. What one piece of advice would you give us"? I answered this way. "I've studied football for a good portion of my life. I have listened to all of the great coaches of my generation, both high school and college. I've seen all of the great offensive and defensive systems through the years. And I have come to believe that their is only one really important thing in high school football and it is this. If you can get them to play hard for you every Friday night, you will be more than okay."
I said it just like it was my idea.
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