Preps

Soccer: Club coach awaits fate after DUI charge

By JOE SMITH
Published October 31, 2007

TAMPA - RSL Florida director of girls soccer Jim Cote, charged with driving under the influence last week, will meet Thursday with the organization's board of directors to determine if he'll still work for one of the bay area's largest clubs.

Cote, 39, a former Chamberlain player, coaches the defending state champion U-17 and U-18 girls teams, which include standouts from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and will play in the North American Nationals next month in Tampa.

The club, formerly the Tampa Knights, signed a five-year deal last year to be a youth development program for Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer.

"As always, there's a legal system and it will deal with it," Cote said. "Whatever it is I must take responsibility for it. I preach to our players to never put themselves in the situation.

"Drinking and driving is the wrong thing to do - whether you had one beer or two beers or half a beer. It's just wrong."

Cote was arrested at 4:52 a.m. Thursday by Tampa police and refused to submit to a Breathalyzer test. According to the police report, Cote was "intoxicated" with a "distinct odor of alcohol on his breath" and was unable to do the field sobriety test properly. Cote was released on $1,000 bond and will set up a court date to fight the charges.

RSL Florida president Simone Hollar said the board, which meets monthly, did not want to "rush to judgment without knowing all the facts." Hollar said she has never received any complaints about Cote, who owns a business and makes $2,000 a year from RSL for overseeing about 18 soccer teams.

"Jim's a really good person and coach," said St. Petersburg senior Andrea Rodriguez, who is on Cote's U-18 team. "Of all the clubs I've been on, he's one of the most hands-on DOC's I've ever had."

[Last modified October 31, 2007, 06:31:46]