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Old 12-23-2007, 07:23 AM #1
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BobbyB BobbyB is offline
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Thumbs Up The fight of his life: Legendary coach Cotter battles ALS

The fight of his life: Legendary coach Cotter battles ALS


(AMELIA KUNHARDT photo/The Patriot Ledger)
By PAUL KENNEY
For The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY - He sits at a dining room table cluttered with notes in a comfortable home one block from Wollaston Beach. Sipping from a tall glass of water, the bear of a man doesn’t mince his words.

‘‘I'm Jim Cotter and I’m dying of ALS.’’

The only indication of any type of problem is the ever-present walker, strategically placed, never more than an arm’s length away. Cotter, the 70-year-old icon and retired BC High football coach, was diagnosed with the incurable ailment, also known as ‘‘Lou Gehrig’s disease,’’ in October 2006.

So after 41 years of football wars, the Massachusetts High School Hall of Fame coach, who compiled a record of 236-149-17 and two state championships, now finds himself in the toughest battle of his life.

‘‘The first time I noticed something wasn’t quite right was actually in 2004. It was in my legs. They started to feel tired and heavy. I was forced to give up running but I continued to walk every day. Then sometime in early 2006 I started to have problems with my balance. It got to the point where I started using a cane, to help me get along,’’ he said.

Three falls within an eight-week period convinced Cotter that it was time to seek medical advice.

‘‘Initially, I went to a spine specialist, but when those tests came back negative, I thought that it might be something with my hips. I was urged to see a neurologist and made an appointment with Dr. Steve Parker at Massachusetts General Hospital. He put me through a battery of tests, and when he looked at the results, in his opinion, he didn’t think that I had ALS, but he wanted me to see their expert. I met with Dr. William David, Mass. General’s chief ALS specialist, and it was Dr. David who broke the news that I did indeed have Lou Gehrig’s disease,’’ Cotter said.

The football coach, known for his toughness and gruffness, reacted to the news the same way he takes everything in life: in a matter-of-fact manner. People who know Cotter well refer to it as ‘‘the Cotter way.’’

‘‘It’s not the news you want to hear, but what are you going to do? You do what the doctor tells you, obviously, but I never felt sorry for myself. I wasn’t going to roll back into a shell and wait for the good Lord to take me. What am I going to do, sit around and brood about my problem? I was retired and I fully intended to live the life I was living. So that’s what I’ve done,’’ he said.

On this late afternoon, Cotter and Agnes, his wife of 24 years, have just returned from lunch.

‘‘We go to lunch almost every day. It’s become our big meal of the day. It can be with old Savin Hill friends, my two younger brothers, Agnes’ sister, or some former players from BC High, or some of my former teammates from Boston College. We mix it up between our three favorite spots: Florian Hall, the Erie Pub or Donovan’s Restaurant.’’

Keeping fit

In addition to staying socially active, Cotter considers exercise to be one of the key ingredients in attacking and, hopefully, slowing the ravages of the disease. Cotter, who played both football and baseball at Boston College (Class of ’59), works out several mornings a week at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, riding the recumbent bike and working with the free weights.

‘‘One thing about this disease, if you lose any flexibility or movement you don’t get it back, so you try and maintain as much flexibility as possible,’’ he said.

In following through with that, the coach maintains a weekly physical therapy session with Kennedy Brothers Physical Therapy.

‘‘I go to Rick Kennedy. He lost a father and a brother to the ALS, and he knows as much about the disease as anybody around, and that includes the doctors. We work for an hour on strengthening my core, my lower back and abs. We do a lot of push-pull and focus a lot on flexibility,’’ said Cotter.

Kennedy, who started the business in 1991 and has six offices in and around the Boston area, is also the co-founder of the Angel Fund, which he helped create 10 years ago. It is dedicated to ALS research.

‘‘I’ve been seeing Jim for close to two years,’’ said Kennedy. ‘‘Like everything he does in life, he’s taking it head on. When I’m working with Jim, we take a very aggressive stretch and stability program, focusing on stretching every muscle group in the legs.’’

Kennedy said that every ALS case is individualized. His father passed away six months after he was diagnosed and his brother Jimmy died three years after his diagnosis, which Kennedy said was on the low end of the average. He felt that Cotter was progressing at about an average pace.

Slowly emphasizing each word, Kennedy said: ‘‘There is not one ounce of pity in the man.’’

In good times and in bad

Agnes Cotter survived her own battle with disease, so she does whatever she can for her husband.

‘‘Thanks to my trusted wife, I’ve been able to get along pretty well. Because of my condition, there are a lot of things that I can no longer do. I have difficulty dressing, certain hygiene issues, so without Agnes I’d be an assisted living person,’’ he said.

‘‘I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer 18 years ago and Jimmy was there for me, so now I’m here for him. But Jimmy’s attitude affects my attitude,’’ said Agnes, a retired Boston school teacher. ‘‘Humor is a big part of how we get by. We take it day to day. But honestly, our lifestyle hasn’t changed a whole lot. But I have to admit, I am very patient,’’ she said with a laugh.

The coach also feels that the location of where his ALS was first diagnosed - in his legs - is another fortuitous circumstance.

‘‘I’m fortunate that it started in my legs,’’ he said. ‘‘Here I am 15 months later and I’m still walking. I didn’t expect to be walking at this point. My biggest fear is losing my voice, that will be terrible, but this disease progresses from the bottom up, so in that respect, I’m lucky that it started lower on my body.

‘‘The real problem is that in the United States there are only 40,000 ALS patients, and because that number is so miniscule, there really isn’t enough of a profitable incentive for the drug companies to push the research,’’ he said.

In an ironic twist, the coach feels that the game of football, the very sport to which he devoted his adult life, may have played a role in his development of the disease.

‘‘I’m convinced mine started from the fertilizer that we used on the football fields. Every year that I coached, when we started double sessions to get ready for the season, the maintenance crew was putting the final coat of fertilizer on the field. Remember Danny Allen, the Holy Cross coach? Danny died of a disease that crippled him, and he was convinced that fertilizer on the fields had something to do with it.’’

A matter of faith

Cotter, who is facing the prospect of a wheelchair sooner rather than later, was asked what gives him his strength of resolve.

‘‘Faith,’’ he quickly answered. ‘‘I’ve never worn religion on my sleeve, but I believe in the Blessed Mother and the Rosary. I try to say a Rosary every day, usually using my fingers. I simply take life as it comes, a day at a time. I think my religious background, BC High, Boston College, and the Jesuit teaching, has helped me with everything in my life.’’

In another twist of irony, when Cotter was a child his idol was Lou Gehrig. In fact, he said that the first movie he ever saw was ‘‘Pride of the Yankees.’’

‘‘You know that speech where Gehrig says, ‘Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,’ well that’s how I feel. I’m the luckiest guy to have lived the life I’ve had and to have had the job I had.’’

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Saturday, December 22, 2007
http://ledger.southofboston.com:80/a...s/sports01.txt
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