Not Much Flash, but a Lot of Fire : Determination Has Helped Cottey Become the Area’s Top Hotshot

Although he leads the South Bay in scoring and is second in rebounding, Redondo High’s David Cottey has not drawn a lot of interest from college recruiters.

The 6-foot-5 senior forward is averaging 23.6 points and 11.5 rebounds a game and shooting 60% from the field.

“I’m not sure if you see him play one game or two that you’d notice all the little things he does,” Redondo Coach Cliff Warren said. “He might be overlooked. You need to see him play day in and day out. I think he’s a very underrated player at this time.”

Last season, when Warren coached at Rolling Hills, he didn’t realize how good Cottey was until he scored 29 points in a victory over the Titans.

“I noticed that he scored around the basket, among other things, but I did underestimate him,” Warren said. “He looked like a good player but he didn’t catch my attention. The more you see him, the more you see how steady he is.”

Cottey knows he may be overlooked for not making flashy plays, but that is the way he likes it. He tries to emulate his favorite player, Larry Bird.

In an age where many youngsters identify with players who wear a certain brand of shoe or stick their tongues out while dunking, Cottey prefers the style of play popularized by the UCLA teams of the 1960s coached by John Wooden.

An avid reader of basketball books, Cottey said one of his favorites is the Wooden autobiography, “They Call Me Coach.”

“I was very impressed with his discipline, the way he gave his team three- or four-hour practices and made them have short haircuts,” Cottey said. “He really tried to make the team think as a unit; there was no goofing around.”

The coach who perhaps knows Cottey’s play better than anyone is El Camino College assistant Steve Shaw, the former Redondo coach.

“I think the change from me to (Warren) has been good for Dave,” Shaw said. “The offensive system that he uses is ideal for Dave.

“We’re certainly recruiting him. We’d like for him to come here; Coach (Paul) Landreaux really likes his game. I know he’s gotten some interest, but hopefully he’ll consider El Camino because after two years here he might have an opportunity to play Division I (basketball).”

Shaw said he has encouraged his players to compete in more than one sport at Redondo, but Cottey has always stuck with basketball.

“He has a real determination to succeed,” Warren said. “He really wants to do well; he wants to be a basketball player and he puts forth a solid effort. There’s no up and down in his game; he’s like our rock of Gibraltar.”

Cottey, who has been playing basketball competitively since the fourth grade, said he almost played football one year, but his parents objected because of the risk of injury.

However, it was a basketball injury that ended the high school career of Cottey’s older brother, Steve, who suffered a broken leg while playing as a senior at Redondo in 1989. David Cottey, a freshman at the time, was in the stands with his family when the injury occurred.

It made him realize how quickly his career could end. He lifts weights up to 10 hours per week to lessen the chance of injury.

The hard work has helped Cottey improve his game, particularly his rebounding.

“The key to our game is his defensive rebounding; he just has a great determination to get the rebound,” Warren said.

Said Shaw: “I don’t think he worked quite as hard at his rebounding in the past. He has a lot of mental toughness; he can go into any adverse situation.”

With most of Redondo’s starters still playing football when basketball season started, the Sea Hawks struggled to a 1-7 record. They are 7-3 since then, despite worries that the football players would need more time to learn a new system.

Cottey has led the Sea Hawks’ resurgence. He scored a season-high 35 points and had 17 rebounds against Temecula Valley in a nonleague game in late December.

Tuesday night, he scored a game-high 20 points but the Sea Hawks lost to Culver City, 72-65, to drop to 0-2 in the Ocean League.

“I’m not real flashy,” he said. “I’m just all over the place, because that’s the way Larry Bird plays.”