By David J. Hill
At Buffalo
Colt Cotten could easily have been a statistic, another kid from a single-parent, low-income family who never fulfilled his potential. But something drives Cotten each day to try to be the best man he can be: the fact that his father wasn’t.

“Whenever I thought about doing something stupid, even now, I say ‘Don’t be like him,’” says Cotten, a senior wrestler whose goal is to win a national championship come March.

If he succeeds, his mother, Fawn, and grandfather, Robert Yerger, will be there to congratulate him. Cotten’s father won’t have a clue. Rodney Lawrence Simpson has been in jail since shortly after Cotten was born. (Fawn gave her son the surname of an ex-husband instead of taking Simpson’s.)

Cotten has never seen or spoken to his father; nor does he plan to. All he knows about Simpson is his birthday, that he was a Golden Gloves boxing champion, and that his rap sheet is a laundry list of felonies and misdemeanors that landed him in a New Mexico state prison, where he has lived for the past 20 years.

“If he ever tried to find me, I’d just—I don’t need that,” Cotten says. “I’m going to get a college degree. I’m hopefully going to be a national champion.”

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