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succeed,with his unique personality that combines intensity, competitiveness and a penchant for risk-taking.
The book begins with a motorcycle accident in 1991 during which Alan was seriously injured. That accident convinced him to leave the pizza business and launch a career as a sculptor. Since then he has landed numerous public commissions and completed hundreds of bronze sculptures with an eye toward ever larger public works.
The book, still being written, is based on key qualities of Alan's personality -- his high-octane intensity, his obsessive competitiveness, his ability to withstand pain, and a desire to take risks - along with the worship of women and lifelong desire to succeed financially.
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Excerpts from the first six chapters shown below.
Chapter 1
But for seven months, he had been focusing an ever larger percentage of mental and physical inventory on one particular seductress -- sculpting. Long interested in art, Alan was becoming obsessed with clay. He always enjoyed molding things -- minds, bodies, attitudes -- and clays was his perfect metaphor. It demanded, in Alan's way of approaching it, that emotion, intellect and muscle conspire to bring him to an orgasmic peak of creativity. To achieve accuracy and feeling, sculpting demanded energy, passion, logic and geometry -- the most powerful ingredients of his personality. Earthy and carnal, clay graciously recorded his ardor, responded to his every touch and when transformed to bronze, reflected his passion upon a world that responded graciously. Passions beget passion. That is to say, people were drawn to his work, and Alan enjoyed showing it. But most of all, sculpting offered him a chance to embrace eternity in bronze. Alan began craving the lust and lure of metal immortality.
But there awaiting them was a 71-year-old drunk in a burgundy Chrysler trying to make a left turn across Route 40's westbound lanes onto Ellwood Park Road. As Alan and Betsy approached, the drunk edged his Chrysler forward then paused. "S.O.B., don't come across," Alan thought. But as they entered the intersection, the drunk struggled with intoxicated indecision and at the worst moment let his Chrysler lurch forward across the westbound lanes. Alan jammed on the brakes. His Harley skidded about three feet before the collision of metal and flesh, then flesh and concrete. The joy ride came to a violent conclusion. And in that instant and forever afterward, Alan and Betsy's lives went flying in directions no one would have predicted.
Chapter 2
But during his point-blank lectures and ornery asides, what's most clear in demeanor and exposition is his fresh joy in this endeavor. Once bored and searching for purpose, Alan seems to have unearthed certain happiness, restless contentment in the least, through daily routine, working as hard as his expectations are high and repeating to himself and anyone within ear shot that he will be the world's best figurative sculptor, even if he has spotted the field 39 years. Doubting him makes him more determined. Skeptics inspire him. What is life but competition?
And that's the final point to be made about Alan Cottrill's studio. One must look long and hard to find it, but a small bust of his dad sits high on a ledge overlooking the studio and all the worst for wear. That's because after sculpting it in plaster, Alan put it outside to weather and deteriorate. It is streaked by rain, baked by sun, browned and shriveled. Then he put the dirty orange bust, sculpted with bitter indignation to unleash psychological demons, inside his studio with full emotional ceremony to show this character exactly what the dumbest kid in the world could dare accomplish -- a millionaire before 30, all-star football lineman at 5 feet 6 inches tall, a world traveler, an inveterate risk-taker and crazy adventurer, a caring father and at long last a masterful sculptor whose work defies description.
In the studio, the bust stares down pitifully with blank eyes, like that of a scorned and ruined Roman emperor, upon the energies and ecstasies of his accomplished son.
Chapter 3
Pain and Consequence
"CRY, ALAN, CRY!"
As her husband Frank whipped their son with a belt, lash after punishing lash, Mary Jane Cottrill could only implore Alan to shed tears. "Please, cry, Alan!" she would beseech him. "If you cry, he'll stop!" But these encounters were too deeply grounded in doctrine and determination. Regardless the ferocity of the flogging, her son was resolved never to cry, even if occasionally he did whimper to end the brutality. Tears violated his creed. Tears reduced his sense of self worth far more than the beatings. Despite the consequences, Alan was resolved to confound both parents by accepting punishment, fair or unfair, blow by vicious blow, without shedding what he had come to consider the most shameful symbol of defeat -- tears.
In that way, the boy who refused to cry did not become stone cold and brooding like dad. His mother developed in him a core of unavoidable sensitivity that did not mesh well with his own desire to suppress emotion, live by the sword and be manly. He became conflicted between mom's sensitivities and dad's lack thereof -- that desire to be a roughshod male countered by an emotionalism implanted by an insistent mother. How could any real man, smart, competitive and tough, also be so darn sensitive? He came to fear that that word "sensitive" would be tattooed across his forehead for the world to see. The goal for a man of honor was toughness, not sensitivity. But Jane's personality produced in him an attendant interest in probing his and others' emotions to understand why his mother suffered the way she did and why her high voltage emotions, as did his, crackled over thin wires.
On weekends, Frank and his family returned to Shock to visit his relatives to deliver money. Alan loved Shock -- the woods, the creeks, the mountain adventures and the rustic lifestyle. There Alan milked his grandfather's cow and chased chickens after his grandfather chopped off their heads. But when Alan arrived at his grandfather's house, his cousins wanted nothing to do with their aggressive, overbearing cousin from Zanesville who was too rough, competitive and adventuresome even for children raised in the rugged Appalachian Mountains.
For the rest of his life, Alan would work to rebuild confidence his father leached from him with angry declarations and flying leather. At age 10, Alan's squinting prompted Jane to take him to a doctor who said it was a nervous tic that Jane now thinks stemmed from the beatings. But in time, he would strive to convince himself, others and mostly his father the only outright stupidity was Frank's proclamation Alan was stupid. Rather than allow his confidence to disappear, Alan set ever higher goals and eventually forged a bolder, more competitive personality to compensate and over compensate for his father's ringing pronouncement that forever will toll in Alan's belfry.
Meanwhile, Alan worked to overcome the effects of the physical abuse his father inflicted and the emotional pain his mother bestowed upon him. He said he carried her pain and anxiety and even her negativism with him everywhere until he discovered later in life after his pizza empire fell and his sculpting career began developing that was not a good philosophy to live by. Pain ultimately must be harnessed and employed.
With fondness, Alan does recall the time he and his father arm wrestled. He cannot remember how the challenge came about, but he and his father locked hands and the battle of generations was underway. After minutes of grunts, groans and red-faced grimaces, 13-year-old Alan pinned his father's hand to the tabletop. For a brief moment, Alan was king. David had slain Goliath. The victory boosted his confidence. It meant more to Alan on an emotional level. It marked the only time he ever remembers touching his father's hand. Growing up, Alan developed a strange attraction to the odor of boot polish and leather. Every night, he was required to polish his dad's boots, and the boots and their oily redolence became surrogates for a father's love. The boots were as close as Alan ever would get to his father.
Chapter 4
The Sport Called Life
What Alan did not realize at that moment -- what teammates and opposition certainly did -- was that no one wanted to be carrying the pigskin with this Cottrill kid on the prowl. Even if he was the shortest on the field and by all accounts slow as cold molasses, he was a pile driver who made up for outright speed with intelligence, quickness and explosive power in pouncing on and punishing opponents. He was small but dangerous -- a veritable human grenade. His friends would repeat the mantra about Alan even as adults: No one -- absolutely nobody -- wanted to be caught in Alan Cottrill's cross hairs.
"Given his size, he was a terror," remarked Mark Connell who played football with Alan through high school and thankfully on the same side of the ball. Others said he was "strong as a bull" and everyone in that banquet hall had witnessed how Alan would plow headlong into any opponent with fiery determination and flatten everything in his path like a road roller only to walk away from the mangled human wreckage with a cool sense of satisfaction.
Whether through sibling rivalry, how sports and games mimic life or native understanding of the ways of the world, Alan came to embrace the idea early that nature's rules were predicated upon a code of competition. He later would confirm this with avid study of evolution. Sperm compete to reach the egg with a grand prize of replicating its genes. Siblings must compete for food, favor and nurture from mother and protection from father, again as a way to boost one's own gene pool. Every aspect of growing up involves intense competition. Throughout life, the rigors of daily competition determine one's status, position, power and wealth. Even love is competition for attention, affections and breeding rights with those possessing the most conducive characteristics. Alan would amend Darwin's operative phrase survival of the fittest as domination of the fittest. Whoever is better prepared, stronger, smarter and more creative ultimately gains power and wealth. That person rules his world. He wins the game of life.
It's that simple. "You can explain it in many ways, but at the core, competition is what motivates behavior. At the primary level, that is what motivates me," he said.
Traversing Ireland, all went well, with a few minor mishaps, but the participants began complaining about long days and endless miles with no time to stop at pubs, drink some ale and do some sightseeing. Coming out of Port Leash, headed toward Dublin, the Dunlevys drove ahead to find a spot where they could catch good shots of the seven bikers pedaling through the Irish countryside. The Dunlevys climbed a steep hill and trained the video on the cyclers as they came into focus. As they began coasting down a long grade, Dunlevy yelled to Alan. "He noticed me on the hill and immediately put his feet on the handlebars and his hands over his head and posed for the camera until he lost control and seriously crashed to the point where his bike had to be repaired. He hurt himself. " Dunlevy said. "I have it all on film."
Alan was whipped into a competitive frenzy, despite the rigors of the miles. At one point at an intersection, Dunlevy and his son met up with Alan who appeared to be in great pain. More so, however, he was bragging about the pain he was suffering as if it were something to relish. Wearing tight pair of riding pants, Alan pulled the pants down to show the source of his pain. From all the friction of pedaling, Alan had rubbed his groin and testicles raw. This he showed to Joshua. "The skin was off his groin and looked like burning flesh," Dunlevy said. But Alan was not seeking sympathy. Instead, he laughed aloud and began chanting, "I love it. I love it. I love it." Then he took off again pedaling in full fury. He could not wait around because Lonnie was gaining on him.
The desire to crunch bones and win never waned. As coach, he decided to play the last play of practice at the end of the year for the simple reason he could not tolerate watching and not anticipating. Without a helmet or padding, Alan took his stance on the line to rush the quarterback, then burst through, slapping aside the center before grabbing the quarterback. He was in the process of sacking the QB in a mad scramble when he smashed his face against the helmet of another player. Alan stood over the quarterback's crumpled body in victory, barely aware something was wrong. "Coach, your nose," his players yelled. Indeed, his crumpled nose was facing left. Blood was pouring everywhere. Cool and collected, Alan acknowledged no pain. Besides, it was the third time he had broken his nose, counting the times playing basketball with his sons. On this occasion, he grabbed his nose, wrenched it back in place and continued soaking in the glory of the moment -- that long-sought feeling of achieving the coveted point of singularity -- in sacking the quarterback. It was a hard lesson he wanted to impart upon the team, that success -- clean, decisive victory -- outweighs pain.
This was Cottrill-style football. Punish. Intimidate. Outsmart. Above all, win.
Chapter 5
Alan's Intensity
. . . Alan plays Risk, a game of world war and conquest, with an aggression that produces anxiety and ultimately disdain among his competitors, especially his fellow Art Club members. Alan attacks incessantly and refuses to retreat. Cagey deals he makes with allies are abandoned the instant they no longer benefit Alan. Allies are pawns. He is a lone-wolf warmonger anxious to rule an embittered game-board world with calculated tyranny he would prefer describing as natural law. Genghis Kahn, Saddam Hussein -- even Hitler -- were more diplomatic in their conquests. Although honest and moral in daily life, Alan understands no ethics or rules in warfare. He will lose rather than retreat, risk all rather than protect a portion, rule or die. His desire to win big or lose dramatically makes for a volatile world in Risk and other chapters of life. A loner usually at odds with the group, Alan travels alone, searching for elusive fulfillment on a higher plain, in a different dimension. . . .
In Risk, Alan assumes the psychological profile of a world leader gone berserk with lust for power, reckless abandon he describes as a calculated risk and lack of ethics important to him in other aspects of life but not in warfare. Alan craves hot battles not cold wars.
Intensity borne of boredom, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder fueled by fear of failure, obsessive desire to prove himself magnified by competitive fervor, all heightened by innate sensitivity and constitutional kinesis have transformed Alan into a whirlwind of intensity. "Relax is not in my vocabulary," he said. "I'm no shrinking violet. You can tell I'm a cocky little shit when the photographer has to tell you to drop your chin."
Cans must be organized in the cupboard with labels facing forward. He organizes cans in other people's houses, including the Dunlevys'. There better be no smudges on his refrigerator. Sue must hang his shirts in exact order with buttons facing right. If not, he is fuming. In the summer, windows must be open. Screens are forbidden. No one dares to sit in his recliner when he is home. Every window shade in the house must be a precise height. Only certain doors can be open. Important is the right amount of natural light to create the right feel and mood. Even outside, he seeks order. When he sees a telephone pole out of plum, it disturbs him. He wants to straighten it. His compulsion to analyze and quantify is an obsession he fought to overcome until he realized its native importance in sculpting.
Chapter 6
Alan seized the pestle and began pounding the lumps into powder inside the porcelain mortar. Alan does nothing gently. He pounded and ground, ground and pounded, and the result was predictable for anyone familiar with black powder, but a complete concussive surprise for the teacher and class, but especially for Alan and Mark.
Alan's roughhouse grinding produced a flash explosion: Black smoke billowed into the chemistry laboratory. And when the smoke cleared, there stood Alan with his rayon shirt melted, his hands and forearms burnt black and the hair atop his head afire. Connell's shirt sleeves were blown off. Both boys had their eyebrows burned. In an instant, Alan not only proved how successful their black powder experiment was, lumps or no lumps, but the folly of their efforts.
But for Alan, rules are there to be broken, if one is wise, adventuresome and courageous. Now this was excitement. Adrenaline was surging. So he decided to land, despite the presence of power lines. He yanked on the emergency air escape and the hot-air balloon began dropping fast to slip between the power lines. He tried reaching behind him to turn off the kerosene burner, but could not reach it. He barely avoided the power lines and hit the ground hard with the kerosene tank hitting first with Alan landing atop the tank. The impact caused him accidentally to hit the throttle, causing the 20-foot flame to shoot from the tank, filling the balloon with a surge of hot air and sending him careening back toward the power lines. It was a dry August day, and the burst of flames caught the grassy field on fire as Alan went dragging across the ground, unable to control his trusty balloon.
Alan figured it would be fun to try a bit of espionage on the espalanade in Moscow. He did not feel yellow about selling blue jeans in the Red's black market. So he took a bag of blue jeans and other American items to the esplanade and made eye contact with a Soviet. Alan showed him the jeans. the man was interested. They dickered over price. But he would never finish the deal. A black Lada, the Soviet equivalent of a Ford, came rushing up the road, screeched to a halt on the curb and four people flew out of the car. Alan knew there was trouble when he saw the Soviet man's eyes bulge in fear. Four officials bore down on them. Alan turned away and tried walking briskly but as casually as he could, as if nothing sinister had taken place. The four grabbed the Soviet denim-lover, threw him into the Lada and whisked him away.
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