For the first time in nearly 30 years, Dave Cottle won't be patrolling the sideline trying to build his own team, scowling at officials and forcing his blood pressure to rise.
He has found a new life after coaching, and he likes it a lot.
"I miss the players, the locker room and being on the field with the players," said Cottle, who resigned as Maryland's head lacrosse coach last spring after nine years with the Terps and 19 before that with Loyola. "That's the real reason you get into coaching is because of the players.
"I always knew there was life besides coaching, I just hadn't seen it for 30 years," added Cottle, who has a 279-115 career record. "And I must say now, it's been pretty good."
Cottle, 55, keeps popping up everywhere. On Dec. 16, Marquette University hired him as a consultant in its quest to build NCAA Division I men's and women's lacrosse programs. On Saturday, the Chesapeake Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse announced him as team president.
What gives? What happened to Florida palm trees and beaches in early retirement?
"Everything was fine and great, but sometime in late August I said to myself, I guess I have to go out and find a job," said Cottle.
So, he found one and then two. Plus, he never gave up the other five or six he had as the director of various summer camps.
Cottlefinds his job with Marquette intriguing. Despite being in Milwaukee — not exactly a lacrosse hotbed — he thinks the school can sell lacrosse.
Cottle can sell anything.
He has already helped set up candidates for both coaching jobs and will be in on the interviewing process. He also will help them in constructing facilities.
Now, let the sales pitch begin. The Golden Eagles begin play in 2013.
"It will work because there are a lot more players playing lacrosse than there were five years ago," said Cottle. "They have a ready made league [Big East] to play in, and it's a school with no football. This sport will help improve campus life and school spirit. I've been very impressed with the athletic and assistant athletic directors, and their knowledge, communication and desire to avoid any pitfalls."
With the Bayhawks, Cottle will oversee areas such as sponsorship, ticket sales, training camp, travel arrangement, youth camps and the draft.
Cottle will also serve as an assistant coach.
It's his chance to get back on the field. Even though he downplays it, he misses that rush that every coach enjoys on game day.
When you play in the Atlantic Coast Conference, you're playing against the best and matching wits with some of the sport;s best minds such as Virginia's Dom Starsia, Duke's John Danowski and North Carolina's Joe Breschi.
When you add Johns Hopkins and Syracuse to the usual Maryland schedule, it doesn't get much better.
"I think Maryland can be very good," Cottle said of the Terps becoming a conference power for an extended period of time. "They are in a conference with four great schools, four great programs.
"A lot of things have to go their way for them to be successful, and that can happen. Maryland has some issues, but the positives far outweigh the negatives."
It has always been hard to recruit at Maryland, especially after Virginia hired Starsia about 20 years ago. It became even harder when Breschi became the head coach at North Carolina two years ago.
Cottle said he missed some things about recruiting, but certainly not others.
"Coaching is about building relationships," said Cottle. "So when you went into a recruit's home or talked with his parents, that was just another extension of learning about him. I miss those times; I miss building those relationships with parents."
And what didn't you like?
"I don't miss sitting on those lawn chairs in the heat watching 16- and 17-year-olds running up and down the field, and feeling like a baked potato during the summer," Cottle said with a laugh.
When I interviewed Cottle, he was in a vacation home in Florida. If he were coaching in Baltimore, he would have had to stay at a hotel on campus Wednesday night.
He'd be shoveling snow off the fields with his players, and wearing an additional 20 pounds of clothing. Instead, he is spending more time with his two daughters and son, coaching the defending champion Bayhawks, still running his camps and still very visible in the lacrosse world.
"I knew something was amiss when I changed the oil in my car during the spring for the first time in 29 years," said Cottle. "That was truly different because you usally start going on the first of January, and you don't stop until the end of May, and then you go into recruiting during the summer.
"This has been great, and most of all, I'm still close to the game."