Andy "Coach" Cotton

Coach's farewell column, after a 10-year run, laments the bloated, mercenary state of "amateur" athletics in the U.S.

Odds and Ends: Hello to Rich Beem and the baseball strike; farewell to Dennis Miller and Terrell Davis.

Cedrick Trout (shudder) comes to dinner. But that's not quite as big a joke as Major League Baseball's idea of steroid testing.

Coach's old Vail nemesis Cedrick Trout has jumped on the Redskins / Steve Spurrier bandwagon, but Coach figures he's at least a year or two early. And in college -- surprise, surprise -- UT's really as good as their hype

Coach gets his disconnection notice, courtesy of Allen Iverson.

Why you want to read about golf, Coach's great metaphor for life

Anna wants to become a top-flight tennis star? Kan o' kourn. Just become a Williams sister.

Coach ventures forth to a pre-dawn World Cup-watching party.

Attending an Astros game with the wife, in the sterility of the new Minute Maid Park, is an iffy proposition. But with the help of a friendly scalper and a lot of Shiner Bock, it's not half bad.

Tiger Woods is a great golfer, no doubt, but it's a shame there's no one else around who can really challenge him.

Attending his son's graduation at UC-Santa Cruz, Coach is struck by a sudden infatuation with alternative sports: college baseball, horse racing, hockey, even World Cup soccer.

The abuse heaped on Ken Caminiti for his Sports Illustrated expose on steroid abuse is disgraceful. Actually, he's done the game a favor by shining a light on the situation.

After a century of "development," baseball needs to reinvent itself. If it takes a long, bloody strike for the players and owners to understand that they have to work together, then so be it.

Mike Tyson's a punk who doesn't deserve the cover of Sports Illustrated; the Spurs and Mavs are pretenders who don't deserve better than they got; and baseball fans … well, they deserve a league that can deal with its labor problems

Coach is a proud papa; his son Adam graduated from college last week.

Odds and ends: David Stern … Drew Bledsoe … KevinGarnett … Rick Reilly … and more.

Kings?Blazers?Mavericks? Forget it -- the only team with a chance to unthrone the Lakers is the San Antonio Spurs. And that second-round series will likely be decided by a couple of injuries.

Tiger Woods is a column-killer; what more is there to say about The Glory of Tiger?

San Antonio and Dallas are two of the best teams in pro basketball. Their meeting this weekend was just a preview of a playoff showdown.

San Antonio and Los Angeles are the two best teams in pro basketball. Their meeting this weekend was just a preview of a playoff showdown.

Let's have a little historical perspective here. Rick Barnes is doing a fine job as the UT basketball coach, but he didn't single-handedly create the UT basketball program. That was Abe Lemmons, in 1976.

You might not guess it, but Coach is a rabid UT basketball fan. He's also one of the world's foremost pessimists.

It's odds & ends week as the basketball playoffs (college and pro) approach.

Poor Nolan Richardson. Why's everybody always pickin' on he?

Coach's new dog, Jasper, is a joy. So was the Canadian gold medal in men's hockey.

When even the duffers at the muni golf course are talking about the Olympics, you know the ratings are through the roof.

Coach pretty much stays out of political discussions these days -- but did you catch our president at the Olympics the other night? What a doofus!

Mark Cuban has transformed the once-pathetic Dallas Mavericks into an elite NBA squad -- but they're not quite there yet.

The agony and the ecstasy of the Bears

In a Vail sports bar, Coach once again meets up with his old pal Cedrick Trout, and the mad-dog Raiders fan isn't in a good mood.