N.Y. Times Article: Cotchery

Jets? Cotchery Steps Into the Spotlight

By KAREN CROUSE

Published: December 7, 2006

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Dec. 6 ? It is widely accepted on the Jets that nobody outworks receiver Jerricho Cotchery. During his first two years as a professional, he camped out in the film room and the weight room even though he did not get much of a game-day return on his enormous investment of time and effort.

?Everybody works hard,? tight end Chris Baker said Wednesday. ?But he?s a step above what everybody else does.?

Cotchery, a third-year pro and first-year starter, was driven then, as now, by a memory so painful he has never discussed it in any depth with his parents.

In the summer of 1998, when Cotchery was a teenager, he was returning home from a basketball practice in Birmingham, Ala., when the car he was riding in blew a tire and flipped over. The driver, Brian Talley, an immensely talented athlete who was Cotchery?s close friend, was not wearing a seat belt. He was ejected and died. Cotchery, who was riding in the front passenger seat, was injured.

?We have never gotten him to be open about it,? Cotchery?s mother, Katie, said in a telephone interview this week from Birmingham. ?Brian Talley was a great athlete and someone Jerricho really loved. I don?t think he?s ever gotten over it.?

For two years after the accident, Cotchery would rub his wrists or eyebrows and bring up bits of glass. He still dredges up memories of Talley, who was the hardest worker he knew.

?It?s something I think about every day,? Cotchery said. ?We were on the same A.A.U. basketball team, and I used to guard him most of the time in practice. One of the days I didn?t feel like practicing, he dropped like 10 straight points while I was checking in. I was like, ?Come on, man.? He was like, ?You?re going to have to step it up a notch because I?m not stepping it down.? ?

After Talley?s death, Cotchery said he decided to honor his friend by making sure that work ethic lived on in him. ?Every day he had a purpose,? Cotchery said, ?and that?s carried over to my life, no doubt. My work ethic was good before, but it wasn?t at the level that it is now. His work ethic then is what my work ethic is now.?

Herman Edwards, who was the Jets? coach during Cotchery?s first two seasons, did not name starters so much as he anointed them. So although Cotchery impressed some of the older players, including Baker, in his first training camp, he was not going to unseat Wayne Chrebet or Justin McCareins, a highly regarded receiver whom the Jets had traded for after the 2003 season.

?After having a great training camp, I thought my role would have been bigger,? Cotchery said. ?I was getting real comfortable.?

Once the season started, he was relegated mostly to special teams, catching 6 passes in 2004 and 19 in 2005.

After the 2005 season, Edwards left to coach the Kansas City Chiefs and was succeeded by Eric Mangini, who doles out playing time differently than Edwards did. Mangini?s philosophy is that the players who practice the best during the week play on Sunday. The environment created by Mangini, one in which hard work is the only valued currency, produced immediate dividends for the 24-year-old Cotchery.

He supplanted McCareins in the starting lineup and has 60 receptions in 12 games, which is second on the team behind Laveranues Coles?s 71.

?When he got a chance to compete in training camp, he really took advantage of those chances,? Mangini said.

Every week, Cotchery seems to grow more comfortable in his starting (and co-starring) role. In the first six games, he averaged 3.8 catches. In the past six, he has averaged 6.2. At Green Bay on Sunday, Cotchery had 9 catches for 99 yards and 1 touchdown, an acrobatic 12-yard catch and carry.

?I think Jerricho has shown over and over again when he gets a chance to catch the ball, he usually comes up with it, and does some really good things with the football after he has it,? Mangini said. ?You keep getting more and more chances as you show that.?

Cotchery?s parents take turns writing weekly letters to their son, who is the 12th of 13 children. It is a custom that dates to when Cotchery left Alabama to attend North Carolina State on a football scholarship. The letters have changed in tenor this season, with the emphasis less on staying positive than on staying grounded.

?We tell him that it?s just a blessing that you?re there,? Katie Cotchery said, ?and you need to thank God for it and keep going and keep his mouth closed.?

They frown on the theatrics of other receivers some people find entertaining. ?If Jerricho ever gets that way, I?m going to be up there,? Katie Cotchery said. ?He has been taught better.?

It is Katie?s turn to write this week. Cotchery said he knows his mother will have something to say about his exuberant ball toss after his touchdown against Green Bay. ?She doesn?t like me to be showing off like that,? he said.

When Cotchery was a baby, he stared at his hands the way other infants stare at a mobile.

?You might think this is silly,? Katie Cotchery said, ?but I used to anoint his hands with oil and pray over them. Because I knew there was something different about this baby.?