Steve Cotner Plays Lane Without the Leap for Kingsmen

In a shoe commercial, Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan takes off like a 747, slam dunks and asks, “Who said man was not meant to fly?”

Cal Lutheran center Steve Cotner, for one.

“I held onto the notion that I could jump until I was a junior in high school,” said Cotner, who is 6-7, 190 pounds. “I lost a center jump after leaping higher than I ever had before. After that, I said, ‘Steve, you’re going to have to model yourself after non-jumping players.’ ”

Cotner can still dream. He wears Jordan’s shoes even though he performs more like Tom Abernethy, who played for the Lakers in the late 1970s. If you’re having trouble remembering Abernethy, then you can imagine how Cotner plays.

“I play boring basketball,” Cotner admits. “ I don’t score the types of points that people notice.”

But for the last two years, Cotner’s scoring has been the only consistency in the Kingsmen’s beleaguered basketball program. Cotner, a senior from Ocean View High in Huntington Beach, is averaging 10.8 points and nearly seven rebounds a game.

“He’s right there every game,” Cal Lutheran Coach Ed Anderson said. “He isn’t a super athlete, but he always does the job for us.”

Even if his teammates sometimes do not.

Cal Lutheran is in the midst of another losing season--5-15 and 2-4 in the NAIA District III conference. One of the highlights of the season was the Kingsmen’s double-overtime win over The Master’s College that ended a 13-game losing streak. Cotner scored the winning basket.

Cotner, who was all-conference last season, said he chose to attend Cal Lutheran, “just hoping to get in four more years of basketball.” He never imagined that he’d be the Kingsmen’s big man.

Anderson admits that Cotner is out of position.

“Steve plays center because we don’t have anyone else who can hold down that position,” Anderson said. “He’s really more of a forward and face-the-basket type of player.”

Cotner expends most of his energy battling to get position for passes and rebounds around the basket. He often finds himself running in circles around taller and bulkier opponents.

“Sometimes I feel sorry for him,” said senior guard Jeff Wrout. “He’s not a big guy, and every game he goes against someone 6-9, 230. If he was an inch or two taller and 20 to 30 pounds heavier, he’d have a better chance of matching up inside.”

Cotner insists that he has tried to bulk up. He lifts weights and says he has tried every weight-gaining method that exists.

“One time, I tried protein shakes loaded with cookies, ice cream--the works,” he said. “I think I lost three pounds after a couple of days.”

A few lost pounds don’t seem to bother Cotner. He’s had to get used to dealing with lost games.

The Kingsmen have finished over .500 only twice since the school started playing basketball in 1961. In Cotner’s three previous seasons, the Kingsmen compiled records of 7-21, 14-16 and 8-25.

Cotner will graduate this year with a degree in political science, and he tries to be diplomatic when discussing the problems at Cal Lutheran.

“No one likes to lose,” Cotner said. “At our school, the emphasis is on football. Sometimes, I think the basketball program is here out of obligation.”

Cotner has heard all about the changes that were supposed to be implemented to upgrade the basketball program. The Cal Lutheran administration would like to see the basketball team play on the NCAA Division II level. Cotner says that won’t happen unless some problems can be solved. The biggest problem has been attracting big players to Cal Lutheran’s undersized gym.

“We showed the campus to a big junior college player last year,” Cotner said. “He loved it until we got to the gym. He chose to go to Wyoming instead, and you know how cold it gets there in the winter.”

From the outside, the Cal Lutheran gym resembles an airplane hangar. Inside is a basketball floor that is four feet short of regulation and thousands of seats shy of accommodating a decent crowd.

“I’ve become anesthetized to it,” Cotner said. “It’s gotten better the last few years. The first year I was here, the coach was down on his knees scraping the floor.”

The Kingsmen also lack scholarship money. No player on this season’s team is on a full athletic scholarship. Tuition and room and board at the school costs about $9,200 a year.

“It’s kind of like the chicken-and-the-egg analogy,” Cotner said. “What comes first? The players that can produce a winning team or the scholarship money and gym that are needed to attract those players?”

Cotner won’t be around if those problems are solved. But he still has a chance to help this year’s team into--believe it or not--a postseason tournament. Eight of the 10 conference teams qualify, and the Kingsmen, winners of two straight games, still have an outside chance. The Kingsmen play Azusa Pacific tonight.

“It’s the most important game of the year,” Cotner said. “If we beat Azusa, we’re in the drivers seat.”