Fruits of Mike Cofer’s Super Bowl titles still missing
It’s this time of year when Mike Cofer is reminded of having twice kicked a football on the game’s biggest stage, and also that people can be (expletives) sometimes.
Cofer is a longtime Henderson resident who kicked in two Super Bowls for San Francisco. The 49ers won both, in 1988 and 1989, and thus a couple of giant, jewel-encrusted rings were presented to him during a grand ceremony by Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who sometimes was referred to as the “most generous owner in sports.”
It may have had something to do with the size of those rings.
So the spoils of those victories rings meant a lot to Cofer. And then one afternoon, when he was watching one of his boys play high school baseball, some (expletive), or a couple of (expletives), stole those rings right out of his home.
The (expletive), or more than one, also took a coin collection and an Xbox. They left his ex-wife’s diamond ring.
“I think they knew exactly what they were looking for,” Cofer said.
He said he normally kept the rings under lock and key, but he had just spoken at one of those Glazier coaching clinics, and other football people wanted to see them.
They were in a jewelry bag in the top drawer, he said.
“It was a punch to the gut. The gall of some people,” Cofer said last week.
He said Henderson police recovered the coin collection, which only had sentimental value. The Super Bowl rings were not recovered. He didn’t mention the Xbox.
This happened in 2013. The wire services picked up the story. It was more or less the first time Cofer’s name had been in the newspaper since he finished 21st in a NASCAR Truck Series race at Phoenix International Raceway won by Kevin Harvick.
I have spoken to him a few times about football and auto racing and other things; he doesn’t seem like a guy who cares much if his name is in the newspaper.
He seemed to care about those Super Bowl rings, though.
He said he may have them replaced, but that he has one son in college and another about to join him. It’s just not a priority right now.
Cofer, who kicked in the NFL for eight seasons, booted field goals of 41 and 32 yards in the 49ers’ 20-16 victory over Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXIII. The next season, he kicked seven extra points (and also missed one) in San Francisco’s 55-10 blowout of the Denver Broncos.
He said he remembers everything about those games, but what he mostly recalls is Jim Burt knocking out Charles Haley at the team hotel with a head butt after Haley had gotten on Burt’s last nerve.
It’s sort of what Mike Cofer would like to do to the (expletives) who stole his Super Bowl rings.
Bowling Cam
It was 2011, I believe, when I spoke to Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton — for like five seconds — before he had ever thrown an official pass for them. It was on the red carpet for a bowling event, of all things. Warren Moon’s bowling event at Texas Station.
Newton was wearing a baseball cap at a jaunty angle. He seemed cocky even then, but he wasn’t wearing crazy pants, like he was when he got off the plane for Super Bowl 50.
It probably was because Guppy Troup, the colorful pro bowler of yesteryear, already had beaten him to it. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/zb2plbt.
A lot of NFL quarterbacks, past and present, were at Moon’s bowling event. Most talked for like five seconds. The exception was Marlin Briscoe, who spoke at length about being the first African-American to start at quarterback in the NFL, for the Broncos in 1968, after a guy named Steve Tensi was injured.
About 100 people standing behind the ropes near the red carpet asked Cam Newton for his autograph at the bowling event.
Only one person approached Marlin Briscoe to ask for his.
High (on) Chaparral
I saw a quote, or a Twitter post, or something somebody had scrawled on a stall in a public restroom, and it was my favorite quote of national signing day for football recruits — much more profound than the coaches at good ol’ State U or crosstown rival Disco Tech saying they had filled a need at linebacker.
It said Joe Seumalo, a UNLV assistant coach, had spent a few hours recruiting at Chaparral High School, and that was the first time the people at Chaparral had seen a UNLV coach on campus since the 1990s.
Which probably was when Nick Garritano, who would kick field goals for the Rebels and now coaches the baseball team at College of Southern Nevada, was playing football there.
Now, you probably are not going to qualify for a second-tier bowl game by fielding a lineup of former Chaparral Cowboys. But it’s pretty cool that UNLV coaches under Tony Sanchez are at least acting as if they are interested in football doings in their own backyard.
Three dots …
• Chicago Cubs slugger Kris Bryant of Las Vegas posted a video on his Instagram account of him swimming with sharks — or maybe it was just Washington Nationals relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon in a shark suit — in Hawaii. (https://www.instagram.com/p/BBYIg8YAlrj/) Three sharks can be seen — and for a brief second at the end, a young woman (or women) in bikinis — in the short video. This is probably not what manager Joe Maddon meant when he mentioned some of the Cubs were spending time in the cage recently. …
• Thanks to the Las Vegas Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research for inviting a certain local sports writer to their January meeting at the Mob Museum. I was told I could bring a guest, so I brought Duke Sims, the former Cleveland Indians catcher who makes his home here — the local SABR heads spent most of the morning asking Sims what it was like to catch Luis Tiant and Sam McDowell; I mostly stood in the on-deck circle and hit fungos. Kirk McKnight, author of a book about baseball announcers called “The Voices of Baseball,” also made a presentation. For more information on SABR, or to join, contact Rick Swift at 702-876-5373.
• If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Persons hoping to test Rip Torn’s theory are advised the After-School All-Stars of Las Vegas will have a dodgeball tournament at UNLV’s Mendenhall Center on March 5. It costs $15 to watch; $250 to enter a community team; $500 to enter a corporate team. Metro again is expected to field a squad, so here’s your chance to hurl a ball at a high rate of speed at a local law enforcement official and not face reprisal. At least not immediate reprisal. For more information, visit www.asaslv.org or call (702)-770-7601.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.
