Over the weekend, a staple of the San Luis Obispo community passed away. Known as "Tiger Bill", Bill Cotnam was arguably the biggest SLO High School sports fan and proved it with his decades of dedication to the athletic community showing up at every sporting event belting the infamous rallying cry: "LET'S GO TIGERS."
“Some of the students have left messages about 'you never missed one of my games,'" Cotnam's daughter, Patricia Taylor said in a phone interview. "Those were his kids as much as I was.”
A graduate from SLO High in 1948, Cotnam never had the chance to be actively involved in sports but he would make up for it almost four decades later when he returned to the area in 1984 to cheer on the Tigers in every sport from the bleachers and sidelines.
“He would get the schedule at the beginning of the year and he scheduled everything else around it. He felt he needed to be there for the kids.”
Cotnam lived an interesting life working as an accountant in Vietnam and Saudi Arabia before moving back home to work for Cal Trans but it was his love for Tiger athletics that stood out when people think of Tiger Bill, serving as grand marshal twice for the high school.
Whether it was his signature cheers or his sports photography, he was as much a part of the the sports teams as the coaches and players were and just like any teammate on any team…
“He didn’t ever want to let them down.”
