KM sports fans mourn loss of one of its all-time greats, Otis Cole

Kings Mountain lost one of its greatest athletes May 18 when basketball star Otis Cole,71, died when a blood clot caused cardiac arrest.

Cole was an All-American basketball player during the Mountaineers’ glory years of the late 1960s and early ‘70s under the late Bobby Hussey. He was the father of one of Kings Mountain’s best ever allaround athletes, Shonda Cole, who was an All-American volleyball player at the University of South Carolina and a star in the pro ranks. From 1968 to 1970 he teamed with other stars such as fellow high school All-American George

Adams, Ken Mitchem, Rick Finger, Charlie Barnes and others to post a three-year record of 66-7.

At Florida State he helped the Seminoles to a runner-up finish to UCLA in the 1972 national tournament. Cole was All-Conference all three of his varsity years at KMHS, and his senior year he was All-American and played in the prestigious East-West all-star game. He scored 1,292 points in his three-year varsity career and went on to score 1,361 points at Florida State.

Although he followed his sports over the years, Cole also took up the game of golf and was good at that, too. His wife, Joanne, noted that Otis and his KMHS teammates Charlie Barnes, Steve Spencer and Rick Finger would meet at the Cherokee Grill once a week to eat and cherish their long friendship.

Mrs. Cole said Otis called Finger, who is a retired doctor, to tell him about his cancer and Finger, Barnes, and Adams came immediately to help. Upon his death many of his former teammates and friends came to the home and/or funeral including FSU great Ron King and other Seminole teammates.

Steve Spencer came all the way from Virginia. She re- called that about 20 years ago UCLA great Bill Walton sent Otis a huge autographed action picture of the two competing against each other in the national championship game.

“Otis was such a loving person,” Mrs. Cole said. “He never met a stranger.”

Mrs. Cole, the former Joanne Kilgore, said she knew Otis when they were students at KMHS but they didn’t date until later. They were married in 1984.

Cole was preceded in death by his father, Otis Cole Sr., sisters Cherlyn D. Cole and Grace Setzer, and granddaughter Taylen Allen.