• Entering his fourth year on staff at Bucknell, Cotton
assists in all facets of the program including recruiting, player
development and on-court instruction.
• Prior to his time at Bucknell, Cotton founded Complete
Player Development, LLC, a basketball instructional training
program in North Carolina, and also served as head coach at Kestrel
Heights School in Durham, where he helped lead his team to the
Central Carolina Athletic League regular season title in
2007-08.
• Cotton was guard for Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma before
transferring to Boston College, where he earned his degree and
played under Al Skinner.
Diary Series: Michael Cotton, Asst. Coach - Bucknell
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a time to focus
on family and a time that reminds us to be grateful for the many
things in our life that we take for granted - like health, family,
having the opportunity to work with great people, and making a
difference in the lives of young men in this profession.
This season, our players were unable to leave campus to spend the
holiday with their families. Our Bucknell Bison are
participating in the Ticket City Legends Classic this year.
We are hosting 3 teams (Princeton, West Alabama, and Morehead
State) for a jamboree style tournament this weekend on our home
court at Sojka Pavilion. Because of this, many of our
players' families decided to spend Thanksgiving here in Lewisburg,
PA, to share turkey and all of the trimmings with their players,
and also to support the Bison in this weekend's tournament.
Coach Paulsen rented out a local sports themed restaurant in town
and provided an outstanding Thanksgiving spread for the entire
Bison basketball family including players, staff and their
respective families. Even a few administrators brought their
families along to join into the festivities.
(*Disclaimer* each of the players' family members were made to
pay for their meals. No extra benefits were given out. We
follow all NCAA guidelines around these parts!)
The combination of our staff and families, players and their
families, and administrators and their families made this
Thanksgiving meal uniquely special. Dinner guests ranged in
age from four to 84. Even larger were some of the
socioeconomic differences between many of the participants;
moreover, the racial and ethnic differences only added to the
uniqueness of this experience. Isn't this what college is all
about? I'm sure the interactions and conversations made for
some interesting discussions.
Thanksgiving morning was started with a 10AM practice. The
guys were surprisingly focused and were able to get a lot
accomplished. I was worried that with it being a holiday the
level of focus, attention to detail, and competitiveness would be
below par, but the guys 'brought it', competed, and were
surprisingly sharp during the workout. I'm sure the focus was
there because the guys knew they were not heading home right
afterward. Many times it's tough for guys to fight through a hard
practice, or any adversity for that matter, when their bags are
already packed and their heads are elsewhere, but that's a topic
for a later blog entry.
The best moments in life usually are shared with the ones we hold
most dear. Here at Bucknell, we do our best to cultivate a sense of
family for our players. I'm hopeful that this Thanksgiving will be
one that the Bison family will remember for years to come. I'm sure
that it will be, if we go 3-0 this weekend!
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