In Tragedy's Wake, a New Strength

After Friend's Death, Officer Returns to Sport They Shared

Every time Maj. Chris Cotillo lifted weights competitively, Cpl. William Minor Jr. was at his side.

"Butch," as Minor was known to his friends, was a calming force, a spotter who would look you in the eye and convince you: You can do this, Cotillo said. So when the super heavyweight was killed in a car crash in 1999, Cotillo found it difficult to jump back into the world of competitive weight lifting.

He competed in Florida that year in a meet for which he had registered with Minor, but something didn't feel right, Cotillo said.

A year later, he took a shot at a meet in Alabama. Again, he said, he found himself missing his trusted spotter and best friend.

By 2005, after two more meets, it seemed Cotillo had given up his hobby for good. Then came the 10-year anniversary of Minor's death.

As he does every July 30, Cotillo took a six-pack of beer to Minor's grave so the two could drink it together. Soon after, Cotillo decided it was time.

A competition was coming up Sept. 19 at the U.S. Naval Academy's Halsey Field House in Annapolis, the venue where Minor and Cotillo had lifted together more than a decade earlier. That would be his return to competitive lifting.

"I always said I wanted to try to do another one," Cotillo said. "It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years."

Minor and Cotillo did not become friends in the usual way.

In the mid-1990s, a recruiter for the U.S. Olympic bobsled team approached the men separately and asked them if they might be interested in trying out. The two, casual acquaintances from the Bowie gym where they worked out, began training together and eventually were invited to Lake Placid, N.Y., to test their skills, Cotillo said.

Both fell just shy of qualifying to train with the Olympic team, Cotillo said. They turned instead to a sport that Cotillo's father had introduced to him when he was a teenager: competitive bench-pressing.

From New Jersey to Canada to Sweden, the two Prince George's County police officers traveled the world, setting records and winning meets, Cotillo said. Cotillo, then an internal affairs sergeant, lifted in the 198-pound weight class. Minor, who worked in patrol, lifted at 275 or super heavyweight, Cotillo said.

"We, of course, became best friends," Cotillo said. "It wasn't like I had to call him every day and say, 'Hey, what are you doing?' We were two guys that shared pretty much the same values."

Their friendship was so well-known in the police department that in the early morning hours of July 30, 1999, a dispatcher knew to call Cotillo to tell him that Minor had been involved in a crash. As Cotillo went to the scene, the dispatcher phoned again. " 'Go to the hospital,' " Cotillo recalled the dispatcher telling him. " 'Butch has passed.' "

Cotillo would later learn that Minor, 35, was off duty and alone, driving his police cruiser on Central Avenue near Six Flags America, when he fell asleep at the wheel. Minor "woke up in the middle of the crash," tried to correct and hit a median, Cotillo said. The car rolled into a gully, and its roof hit a tree, he said.

The next weeks and months were somewhat of a blur for Cotillo. Already grieving, he was responsible for telling Minor's family what had happened. Cotillo got a tattoo on the back of his neck that read "Butch" and pictured a bar carrying 610 pounds, the most Minor had lifted. Cotillo worked with Minor's parents to start a scholarship fund in their son's memory.

But Cotillo lost his drive to lift competitively. He competed in just the four meets, one in which he was seriously injured. When he lies on the bench Saturday, it will mark the first time he has done so in five years. He said he hopes to break a regional record of 414.9 pounds, something Minor would have wanted him to do, Cotillo said.

"We didn't go there just to lift," he said. "We went there to win."

Minor's parents, William and Antionette Minor of Seat Pleasant, have stayed in touch with Cotillo, and William Minor said he will watch Cotillo compete Saturday. Antionette Minor said she thinks Cotillo's return to lifting is a "wonderful" testament to her son.

"That says something about their friendship," she said. "It's just an overwhelming feeling to know that he was so well-loved and still thought about by so many people."

At a recent workout, Cotillo, who commands the police department's District 2 station, brought a scrapbook of photos of himself and Minor at meets and newspaper clippings from the time of Minor's death. The book serves as a constant reminder -- as if he needed it -- of a friend who seemed as close as a brother, Cotillo said.

Cotillo benched 460 pounds without trouble at the workout, but at 475 pounds, his spotters had to take the bar up. Even at 460, though, Cotillo would shatter the USA power-lifting regional record, he said, and at Saturday's meet, he hopes Minor can help him get more than he would normally.

"When I'm at the gym and I'm trying to get a lift, I'll ask him for help," Cotillo said. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about the man."