Okla. boxer sets sights on trip to London Olympics

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KAREN SHADE / NATIVE TIMES PHOTO

PAWHUSKA, Okla. – The Midway Café is calm for a Saturday morning, but perhaps not for Pawhuska, the sleepy town in Osage County. People quietly chat at tables and the counter.
“Have you heard of Ben Cottingham?”
When asked, a waitress at the cash register thinks before replying she has never heard of him. That could change in a matter of weeks.
The 20-year-old Pawhuska native is a boxer who can see a straight shot to London and the Summer Olympics. Cottingham, Osage and Seneca-Cayuga, is the only prospect for this level of competition coach Earl Gilkey has trained in his 40 years of boxing and mixed martial arts experience.
“I’ve had several other champions, but not at this magnitude, of the Olympics,” Gilkey said.
Down from the café on Main Street, Gilkey’s Karate studio sits against a background of tall brick and stone buildings recalling the town’s heyday when, nearly a century ago, the headquarters of the Osage Nation flourished with the discovery of oil on tribal lands. The street is still impressive. Inside the studio, Cottingham warms up for a training session with his coach.
At 165 pounds on a 6-feet-2-inch frame, Cottingham is fit for middleweight contention. Gilkey wants to keep it that way. The pair will leave for the 2012 USA Boxing National Championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Feb. 24 to improve on his record of 14-2. They plan to drive and will stay until the end on March 3. They hope Cottingham will be the last fighter standing. Having captured the state and regional championship title last month in Tulsa, Cottingham will square off against other contenders. Doing well in Colorado means he qualifies to participate in the Olympic trials in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The next stop, of course, is London.
He’s quiet and keeps to himself mostly. When you watch him in training, however, Cottingham makes his presence known.
Training is everything to Cottingham, the son of Charles and Patricia Cottingham. In 2005, he was looking for something to do. At the local Girls & Boys Club, he met Gilkey, a grand master in karate who taught karate, boxing and mixed martial arts.
Even then, Cottingham stayed to himself, but he kept going back. Soon, he was competing in local boxing matches for his age group.
“Out of the group we had up there, he stayed with me, the only who stayed; and I could see that he had some potential, and I’m a real patient person. I’ll work with you if you’ll only commit yourself,” Gilkey said.
Cottingham is hesitant to talk much about the years that followed. At 15, he was placed in juvenile detention for things he would rather forget, among them burglary. It was a rough period in his young life that, in the end, offered him something priceless – a chance to start over and focus. Months of counseling helped, he said.
When he was released from detention a year later, he was 50 pounds heavier than when he went in, and it wasn’t the kind of weight athletes put on intentionally. Cottingham wanted to get back in shape and train again.
Gilkey, who welcomed him back, remembers when Cottingham approached him. Today, he trains the boxing up-and-comer for free at his Main Street studio.
“I’m the type of person that I’ll give you a second chance,” Gilkey said. “… The past – that’s his. We look at now and let go of the past. It’s behind us. I’m going forward.”
Cottingham is going with him. He’s a stand-out student, his coach said. Gilkey gives his pupils guidance in the physical and mental exercises athletes must endure to go the rounds. But it’s the student’s decision that will decide how far and long Gilkey will lift them up.
Cottingham wasn’t interested in winning titles. He was driven to get in shape and train. Titles give him purpose and focus to be better. When asked to talk about himself, he said, “I just work out and eat. I don’t know. What do you mean?”
Most days, the boxer can spend between 3-4 hours total in a workout that includes roadwork (running on the road), cardio, strength training, foundation work on the legs, speed bags for speed and coordination, and jump rope. Everything is done on a three minute timer so the fighter gains a sense for when a 3-minute round is up.
Gilkey said he has increased his times to prepare him for Colorado Springs and its high altitude and lower oxygen concentration.
Now as before, Cottingham is a quiet, distant person, his coach said. He doesn’t have a lot of friends, “which is good. I don’t have any problem with that. He has a good attitude towards the workout. He’s real comfortable with that world. He’ll do whatever I ask him to do. If I said, ‘Go out there and run right now with your shorts on,’ he’ll do it.”
All in all, Cottingham is a good kid who opens up in the ring with a strength that’s startling up close. If student and coach can make it Brazil and on to London, both will be all too happy to see the words “Olympics games” stamped on his record. But first, there is Colorado, and they both need help getting there, Gilkey said.
The coach and Cottingham’s supporters are raising money to cover travel and accommodation expenses allowing him to participate in the championships. Earlier this week, they had an Indian taco dinner and silent auction in Pawhuska for donations that would pay for his travel expenses. Civic groups like Pawhuska’s Elks Lodge have also contributed, but they have a long way to go to reach the $3,000 they will need. They are asking for help to meet the goal through donations and/or sponsorship.
Only one other Oklahoman, Daniel Logan of Oklahoma City, will compete at the national event, and he is also a middleweight fighter.
As his focus shifts to competing and making it as far as possible, Cottingham has found that faith helps too, even if it doesn’t come easy.
“I just ask Him for guidance,” Cottingham said. “I don’t really know how to pray, so it’s kind of hard to really figure it out.”
He need only ask Gilkey, as patient as ever.
“I don’t mind because I see the end results … it’s a reward,” Gilkey said.
If  you would like to help send Cottingham and his coach to next week’s USA Nation Boxing Championships, contact Gilkey by phone at (918) 287-2663. He may also be reached by mail at 2730 Grandview, Pawhuska, Okla., 74056.