By FRED KRONER
A Hall of Fame designation is forever.
For the recipient, however, there is only an infinite amount of time to enjoy the recognition.
Andrew Cotner had 46 days.
The 1987 Centennial High School graduate – and Hall-of-Famer at his alma mater – passed away on Wednesday (May 5) in San Diego, following a long and tenacious battle with both cancer and kidney disease.
Cotner was originally targeted to be enshrined in the Centennial Hall of Fame in January, 2020, but the weekend of the ceremony conflicted with the first baseball game of the season for Ventura (Cal.) College, where he had started working earlier in the month.
His induction at Centennial was delayed until January, 2021, but that ceremony was then postponed due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
Recognizing that the terminal nature of Cotner’s illness might not allow him to be present at a future ceremony which still doesn’t have a rescheduled date, Centennial athletic director Kaleb Carter held a special ceremony for one person in the school cafeteria on Sunday afternoon, March 21.
Fifty friends, relatives and associates gathered to honor Andrew Cotner, a multi-sport athlete who excelled in baseball as a left-handed pitcher. The turnout would have been greater had the public health department not restricted the event to 50 people.
Cotner had 46 days to enjoy his official Hall of Fame status. He had a lifetime, however, to enjoy the passion that allowed him to become one of his school’s all-time elite: Baseball.
It is a sport he played in high school, in college, in the New York Mets farm system, and later – when an injury derailed his professional aspirations – for fun with the Buckley Dutch Masters in the amateur Eastern Illinois Baseball League. At the time of his death, Cotner was in his sixth year as President of the E.I. League.
Cotner worked for a time in the Houston Astros front office, and later coached baseball travel teams and tutored up-and-coming prospects throughout Central Illinois.
Or for that matter, anyone who wanted to listen.
There was no off-day for Cotner’s fondness for baseball.
Christmas Day 2020 included.
“My oldest son, Conor Steinbaugh, is playing at the University of Akron and my other son, Cale Steinbaugh, is a junior at Georgetown-Ridge Farm,” said Chad Steinbaugh, the Buffaloes head baseball coach.
“Conor is a pitcher at Akron and is very disciplined about his workouts. He was scheduled to throw a bullpen (session) on Christmas Day and he was determined to throw a bullpen no matter what his mother had to say.
“So, we went to the East Central Baseball facility in Champaign (owned by Robin Elliott) so he could throw his bullpen. While we were there, Andrew Cotner comes in the facility because he saw a vehicle in the parking lot.
“I don’t think people understand how much Andrew loved the game. He was going to come and watch whoever was present at the facility. It could have been a dad and a little boy, but Andrew didn’t care. He just wanted to be around the game.”
Though the throat cancer was already in advanced stages by last Christmas, Cotner didn’t just stand in the background and watch.
“He played pepper with Cale for about 20 minutes while Conor did his stretching and warm-up,” Chad Steinbaugh said. “He watched Conor’s bullpen and we communicated via text over the next few hours about his treatment and baseball.
“Cotner loved baseball.”
Cotner’s mode of communication after his larynx was removed was through text messages, emails and hand-written messages.
No matter how many years Cotner had been associated with baseball – and the total was approaching nearly a half-century – he willingly acknowledged when there was a better way of doing something.
“A few years ago, Andrew had been giving pitching lessons to players and he had an opportunity to go to the Texas Baseball Ranch to learn more about pitching,” Kenny Price said. “He came back and contacted the players and told them that he had been telling them wrong and instructed them in different pitching mechanics.
“He cared about arm health and proper training without ego getting in the way of what he considered proper instruction, his idea or someone else’s.”
Price’s son trained under Cotner’s tutelage and played on his travel team in 2020. The Prices are from the Rantoul area.
***
Perhaps the only thing greater than Cotner’s love of baseball is the love that his friends have shown for him.
Champaign’s Dena Slade said it’s virtually impossible to encapsulate the life of a dear friend she has had since high school with a simple summary.
And yet, her well-constructed words and sentiments ring true for those who knew Cotner, whether it was for a year or for a lifetime.
Slade said: “Andrew David Cotner had a magnificent life.
“He had a magnificent family.
“He had magnificent friends.
“He had a magnificent talent in the sport of baseball.
“He had a magnificent personality.
“He had a magnificent work ethic.
“HE WAS MAGNIFICENT.
She continued: “Andrew and I have shared a lifetime of memories. And as I struggle to find words to capture them all, I realize it is because there is no way to describe Andrew, or his life, in a matter of sentences.
“His life, like many of ours, was complicated and intriguing. It was fabulous and tragic. It was fun, and it was hard.
“Andrew did not back away from a challenge … nor did I … which on occasion became interesting. I loved how he and I could always challenge one another to be better, whether it was being better coaches, being better friends or being better people in general.
“Bottom line, I loved my complicated friend, I loved his passion and his heart for others. I miss him with every fiber of my being.”
***
Monticello’s Carmen Castillo-Ureno was another of Cotner’s connections whose association with him wasn’t primarily due to baseball.
Castillo-Ureno, who is in private practice (with Transcend Bodywork), had Cotner as a client as his oncology/hospice licensed massage therapist since 2018.
“One-of-a-kind man,” Castillo-Ureno said.
In the hours following Cotner’s passing, Castillo-Ureno wrote: “Goodbye is never easy. Unless you are saying it to the suffering, not the person. Andy and I had a very special connection of trust. He always knew my intentions. And I, his.
“The friend/client relationship is extra empathetic. The fact that he could no longer speak with his voice had almost no bearing on our communication. The eyes tell it all.
“He let me in to comfort him and his ailing body in the most dark and fearful moments, with no words to express himself.”
Castillo-Ureno was friends with the person, but not the reason for the position Cotner found himself.
“I have an emblazoned hate for all cancer,” she said. “I hate what it takes from us. But I chose this path in my career because although I can’t control the disease itself, I needed to be more in control of how it affects us as human beings. I took what I saw as ugly, and made it beautiful, kind and unburdening.
“Life isn’t fragile. Bodies are. We are not our physical. Andy was, and always will be, a source of strength and integrity. The end of life can be lovely, if you allow it to.
“In the wise words of B.J. Miller: ‘If we love such moments ferociously, then maybe we can learn to live well, not in spite of death, but because of it. Let death be what takes us, not our imagination.’”
Castillo-Ureno, whose son (Cannon) trained with Cotner, ended with a baseball reference.
“He is playing in the Big Leagues atop a Universe that welcomed him back to his Home team,” she said. “I’m just cheering in the stands with the smell of popcorn and the sun on my smiling face. Play ball.”
***
That’s exactly what Cotner did as a youth in Decatur, spending hours at Sinawik Park playing ball.
Cotner’s older brother John, who lives in Petersburg, and childhood friend John Dearth, who lives in Indianapolis, remember those formative years in baseball when they were youngsters.
“I was his catcher when we were ages 9 through 12,” Dearth said. “I can tell you that he pitched like a major-leaguer when he was 12 years old.
“He was the best pitcher I ever saw at that age, and we had the opportunity to see some talented opponents. None were better and anyone who watched him then knew that.”
Cotner was a self-made player.
“His drive to succeed is what made him,” John Cotner said. “As kids, we’d play sunup to sundown every day, and it was never enough.
“When we got home, he’d throw a baseball against the wall for hours and hours after dark. He tackled cancer the same way: He never quit.”
John Cotner also spent time serving as his brother’s designated catcher, he said, until “I couldn’t catch him anymore. My hands were wore out and sore.”
The irony, John Cotner said, is that he wishes there were more opportunities like they shared as youngsters.
“I don’t remember the last catch,” he said. “We had millions, but I wish I could have one more catch with him.
“He was my younger brother, but I looked up to him for the way he carried himself on and off the field.”
Dearth and Andrew Cotner were teammates on a talented team of 12-year-old Decatur all-stars that participated in the Bronco League state tournament in suburban Chicago.
“We were one game from going to the Bronco World Series in 1982, and Andy was the biggest reason,” Dearth said. “We were very good without Andy, but with Andy, could have won the national World Series.
“He was that much of a difference-maker on the mound. That isn’t pie-in-the-sky hyperbole.
“We were the best team that stepped on the field, but lost a heartbreaker at Oak Park in the championship. They went on to the World Series in St. Joseph (Mo.), and finished as runner-up in 1982.”
***
Long-time friend Scott Friedman said one trait stood out about Cotner above all others.
“Andrew was the most competitive person I have ever met, and always took my money on the golf course 99 percent of the time,” Friedman said.
St. Joseph’s Dave Roesch said the perfect illustration about the level of competitiveness took place in June, 2020 when Cotner was coaching the 16-and-under Dream travel team.
Though he couldn’t speak following a total laryngectomy in March, 2020, that didn’t mean Cotner couldn’t convey his feelings and frustrations.
“I don’t remember all the details, but I know it was a brutal call against our team,” said Roesch, whose son Griffin was a member of the Dream. “Cot marched out there (on the field) and really gave the ump his opinion, without being able to say a word.
“Long story short, he got tossed from the game while ‘going to bat’ for our boys. Seriously, tossed from a game while not being able to speak.”
Before coaching the Dream, Cotner was involved with other travel teams, the Dirtbags and Mizuno. He worked with numerous players who went on to play baseball at the collegiate level, including Chris Monroe (University of Illinois-Springfield), Conor Steinbaugh (Akron), Colton Hale (UIS) and Austin Cain (Nicholls State).
Parents appreciated Cotner’s attention to detail.
“My memory of Coach Cotner, Drew to me, was of a person of relentless energy and of an incredible passion for teaching the game of baseball,” said Dan Monroe, an associate professor at Decatur’s Millikin University. “Hitting lessons with Cotner were an exercise in passion and intensity, in a good way.
“He conveyed that intensity and passion to his players, and he acted as a mentor and counselor. My son Chris is (currently) having a great experience as a college baseball player on the No. 4 team in Division II baseball at the University of Illinois-Springfield.”
Credit for keeping the game fun while building a drive to improve goes to Cotner.
“Cotner’s devotion to baseball helped Chris, Conor, Colton, and countless others, compete at a high level,” Dan Monroe said. “He was a damned fine mentor and an even better man.”
A Cotner fault – and a consistent one, at that – was that punctuality wasn’t typically a part of his day-to-day endeavors.
“I remember Cotner always arriving late to every event, whether it be a lesson or a baseball game or to meet for drinks,” Dan Monroe said. “He was a legendary late-arriver.
“We called it ‘Cotner time’ and considered it an amusing trait rather than a disability.”
***
Michelle Ciucci now has her doctorate and is a speech-language pathologist and neuroscientist. She is an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders and Surgery/Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is Associate Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and is Director of the MS-SLP program.
In the 1990s, she and Cotner were both University of Illinois students, working at the same local establishment.
“I first met Drew while working at Gypsy (in Champaign),” Ciucci said. “I was taken aback by his range of knowledge and interests, and of course by the sheer volume that he chose to make those known to anyone that would listen.
“We made the drive to Arizona together in 1998 and by the time we got there, I had a pretty good working knowledge of baseball.”
Ciucci and Cotner spent time together in both Arizona and San Diego. Recently, they reconnected.
“We spent most of the last few years together recovering from (a 2018) surgery in Madison (Wis.),” Ciucci said. “It was awful, but also a gift – his warmth and mindful approach to living well brought a lot of joy to our house, even when he was clearly struggling.
“Our pets and daughters were captivated by his warmth. I imagine him now, just like in that picture, with his surfboard at the beach, with that goofy smile.”
Ciucci, like many of Cotner’s friends, was aware of his baseball prowess, but related to him for reasons other than sports.
Champaign’s Mark Orsted moved to Champaign (from Marquette, Mich.) a year before the Cotner family relocated next door after leaving Decatur.
“Andy was always the most genuine person,” Orsted said. “For a guy (me) who wasn’t an athlete, or a band member, or even local, and knowing how ‘clique’ high school is, Andy was a different animal.
“He really was that genuine. He was true and good to the popular and the unpopular alike and didn’t look down on anyone. We reconnected some years back and got to hang a few times, including some class reunions. Same genuine guy every time.”
Cotner made it a point to be well-versed on a multitude of topics ranging from sports to politics to world affairs.
“One thing I really appreciated about Andy was his intellect,” Orsted said. “The guy was smart. He was well read. He was passionate.
“He cared about truth, facts, and people, and back when I was more political on (Facebook), I looked forward to his insights as they were always well-informed. He didn’t let people get away with being mean either. Ever.”
Orsted last saw Cotner at a Hall of Fame celebration at Jupiter’s on March 21.
“He had told me some time back that the road was narrowing for him and that he just wanted to see folks and be positive,” Orsted said. “That’s who he always was.
“Everyone talks about Andy the ball player or coach, but I just knew Andy as a genuinely good, honest, man. If you didn’t know him, you did truly miss out.
“If you did know him, today you are missing him.”
