NY Times Article: Cotchery

Jerricho Cotchery, a Modest Jet, Excels at a Position for Divas

By GREG BISHOP
Published: October 8, 2009

WATCHUNG, N.J. ? Inside the Cotchery home, visitors find framed paintings, a grand piano, hardwood floors, granite countertops and flat-screen televisions. These are the spoils of the Jets? No. 1 wide receiver, even one who acts as if he still plays on special teams.

Jerricho Cotchery may rank fifth in the N.F.L. with 356 receiving yards, but he does not fit the self-promoting, me-first receiver stereotype. His house, for all the expensive furniture, highlights none of his football exploits.

?He loved to prove people wrong without saying a word,? said Sedric Cotchery, his older brother. ?He don?t beat his chest. He just beats cornerbacks.?

Cotchery always blended in more than he sought to stand out in Birmingham, Ala. He grew up the second youngest of 13 children, some full siblings, some half, with 27 years between the oldest and the youngest, and 16 inches between the tallest and the shortest.

The family patriarch was Bob Cotchery, but everyone called him by his middle name, Jerricho. He pulled out his teeth with pliers, popped his separated shoulder back in place and once cut off his pinkie toe with a lawnmower.

When doctors offered to sew the toe back on, he calmly said: ?Why? It?s just a toe.?

Bob Cotchery ran a lawn service, or fixed cars, bouncing from job to job, anything to pay the bills. What the family lacked in money, they made up for in numbers. Katie Cotchery sold baked goods ? peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, German chocolate cake, caramel cake, pineapple upside down cake ? and still fed and clothed a baker?s dozen children.

She especially liked the quiet one, also Jerricho, or Coco to his sisters, and she rubbed baby oil on his hands because she knew they were special. Once, during a pee-wee football game, she ran onto the field and told the tacklers to ?get off of my baby.?

His siblings protected Jerricho, kept him from dangers lurking in the streets. They got creative, handed down shoes that were too small, or dressed him in baseball cleats for football games.

Each child developed a distinctive trait. Robert was the loudest; Sharon the best dancer; Eric the family comedian. Jerricho? The most quiet and reserved. At 3, he used to sprint through the house, yelling about how he would play professional football and buy his mother a mansion. Then one day, Katie Cotchery said, he quieted down. ?You wouldn?t even know that child was in the house when he was little,? said Caroline, his older sister. ?He never watched TV. He watched people, and he observed.?

Those eyes, still dark and piercing, witnessed scenes no child should. Like the older brother, also named Eric, who suffered from muscular dystrophy and died when he choked on his food, according to Jerricho. Or the best friend, also a standout football player, who is serving a life sentence in prison.

Or the time, with basketball teammates who included the Arizona linebacker Karlos Dansby, that the car they were riding in blew a tire, flipped and rolled into a ravine. The driver, another close friend, was ejected and died instantly.

Cotchery plays for them, make no mistake, even if he does not thump his chest and point skyward after touchdowns.

?When I met him, I realized there was a reason he was so reserved,? said Mercedes, his wife. ?I like to quantify it like his eyes have seen so much, there?s nothing that can surprise him, or take him out of his element.?

Everything Cotchery went through prepared him for this season. Cotchery had carried the Jets? mostly anonymous receiving corps until Wednesday, when the club acquired Braylon Edwards from the Browns. Edwards, his opposite in personality, temperament and reputation, will take the pressure off Cotchery and give quarterback Mark Sanchez another bona-fide downfield threat.

Earlier this season, when Cotchery scored against Tennessee, he broke into a brief celebratory dance. Mercedes?s phone lit up with text messages, so atypical was the gesture.

In fact, while Cotchery admits that ?most receivers are divas,? his wife struggled to remember the most diva-like act he had ever done. Eventually, she settled on the custom golf balls he ordered stamped with his number, 89.

?Put Jerricho Cotchery and No. 1 receiver in the same sentence, and that?s an oxymoron,? said linebacker Bart Scott, providing a telling, if not exactly grammatically correct, description.

Coach Rex Ryan said he knew Cotchery could play, that he saw the talent up close while coordinating Baltimore?s defense. Ryan said Cotchery surprised him with his work ethic, the toughness and consistency built in poverty in Alabama.

Ryan suggested last week that the Jets hire a dance coach to choreograph Cotchery?s end zone celebrations. Mercedes disagreed.

?He doesn?t need a dance coach,? she said. ?He just needs to dance.?

Drafted in the fourth round in 2004, Cotchery spent most of his early career on special teams. Herman Edwards, the Jets? former coach, said he regretted not playing Cotchery at receiver sooner, but Mercedes believes both she and her husband needed that time to grow. Cotchery never demanded more playing time, never begged for the contract extension he eventually received.

?This is who I am, and this is how I got here,? he said. ?By working to get from this point to that point, a steady climb. I haven?t changed. I?m not changing.?

Mercedes, who met Cotchery while they were at North Carolina State, is a whirlwind of force and energy, the perfect complement to her reserved husband, and they refer to everything they do as ?we.? As in, ?we scored.? She teases him about his immaculate hand writing, loves his underrated sense of humor.

Together, they used his increased platform to boost the efforts of The Cotchery Foundation. They spoke at libraries, started a mentoring program, advised young women on life skills. They hold events, like an upcoming tailgate, with teammates as guests, on Oct. 19.

At the annual football camps Cotchery runs back home in Birmingham, Ala., the youngsters remind him of himself, but none wear baseball cleats the way he used to.

?Because we buy all of them football shoes,? Cotchery said.

The big family that reared the most reserved of No. 1 receivers traveled last week to New Orleans, 35 strong. At other games, they gather at Katie Cotchery?s house, fill themselves with soul food and talk about where they came from ? and how that shaped the man they see on TV.

Even if he never dances.