At about age 10, around the time of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and the escalation of the Vietnam War, I started writing a family newsletter called, fittingly enough, \u201cThe Cote News.\u201d Wrote it on a battleship-gray, manual Royal typewriter that I could barely lift. Nobody asked for this newsletter. No clue why I started it.<\/p>\n
And no idea then that it would be the spark for a lifelong love of writing, one that, with a fateful series of magic and luck, would lead to a 54-year career with the Miami Herald\u2019s Sports department, from part-time clerk to lead columnist.<\/p>\n
My mother once lamented to me the clich\u00e9\u2019 that \u201ctime flies.\u201d I, by then a know-it-all teen, scoffed and told her, \u201cMom, time goes by exactly as fast as it\u2019s supposed to!\u201d<\/p>\n
She was right of course. Time does fly. It just did, for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s eventual,\u201d as one of my favorite writers, Stephen King, said in a book title.<\/p>\n
What if, what if, what if.<\/p>\n
What if I hadn\u2019t had a teacher at McArthur High School in Hollywood who identified a glimmer of writing talent, nurtured it, and encouraged me onto the school paper for which she was the adviser. (It was called the McArthur Hi-Times, a name later changed because of the drug connotation).<\/p>\n
I became the sports editor and wrote snarky columns making fun of the school\u2019s lousy football team \u2014then unheard of in a high-school newspaper. A trio of angry and large Mustangs players once cornered me against a water cooler. I lived to tell about it.<\/p>\n
That teacher encouraged me to do what no one in my family had ever done: Go to college. I wrote for the school papers at Broward Community College and then Florida Atlantic University.<\/p>\n
But what if my older brother hadn\u2019t seen or told me about that small notice in the Herald for an opening for a part-time sports clerk? And what if Jim Martz, then the Broward sports editor, had not hired me?<\/p>\n
![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_6859.jpg\" "\\"IMG_6859.jpg\\"")
Jim Martz, left, was the Broward Sports Editor who hired Greg Cote as a part-time sports clerk in 1972. Greg Cote <\/p>\n
I took a city bus to the interview because I didn\u2019t have a car yet, Uber wasn\u2019t invented, and I had no money, anyway. I was 17. My first Herald job was answering phones and writing a local bowling column.<\/p>\n
One of the first calls I answered was a young female voice. I asked who was calling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m returning Jim\u2019s call,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s Chrissie Evert.\u201d<\/p>\n
I figured then that this might be a pretty cool job.<\/p>\n
And it was right up until the end, earlier this month when, on my birthday, I got a call from a McClatchy executive I didn\u2019t know informing me I had been laid off and that my last day with the Herald would be Sept. 25.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how many current American newspaper columnists served longer at one newspaper than me. Or how many writers in the 116-year history of the Herald did. But I suspect the number in either category was a handful or less. To go out the way I did was hurtful. I thought I deserved better. Then again, so does any employee in any line of work whose ultimate thanks for the loyalty is a pink slip from a stranger.<\/p>\n
So it took me more than half a century to write this farewell column \u2026 but at least I made deadline, right boss?<\/p>\n
My first byline in the Herald was on Sept. 5, 1972. The Miami Dolphins were just about to kick off what would be their one-of-a-kind 17-0 Perfect Season. I do not take credit for the coincidence \u2026 although \u2026 you never know.<\/p>\n
I worked my way up to covering high schools in the \u201870s. And if anybody reading this is old enough to recall I once wrote football predictions as \u201cthe Prep Prophet,\u201d a toast to you!<\/p>\n
You wanna talk about the glamour of being a sportswriter? Picture me, after a high school night game at Lockhart Stadium, on deadline, standing in a pay phone line behind a dozen students waiting to call Dad or Mom for a ride home (no cell phones yet) \u2026 waiting to dictate a six-paragraph story over the phone to an irascible editor \u2026 while a dozen more students behind me were shouting variations of \u201cHurry up!\u201d<\/p>\n
I covered preps while working almost full-time but not quite as I matriculated slowly through college.<\/p>\n
My first major beat (it sure seemed so then) was covering Fort Lauderdale Strikers soccer and the sublime Ray Hudson, who once admitted to me he spent halftime dreaming up colorful quotes to delight the media postgame. (My kind of athlete!)<\/p>\n
That team was full of characters, most around my age. A British defender, Ken Fogarty, once fed me a human interest story about how his sister was on a \u201ctroop ship\u201d headed to the Falkland Islands war. Great story. Totally false. Career survived the embarrassment. Lesson learned.<\/p>\n
I began to see an invisible ladder.<\/p>\n
I was promoted to cover Miami Hurricanes football as a major beat from 1984 to 1988., the Jimmy Johnson years. I had arrived. What teams, what years! My first sit-down interview for an in-depth feature story was with Michael Irvin over breakfast at the Denny\u2019s across from campus. I paid for the ham, grits and eggs. Probably violated nine NCAA rules.<\/p>\n
All glamour, my budding career? Picture me, on the sideline late in the \u201cCatholics vs. Convicts\u201d night game at Notre Dame, dodging debris thrown from the stands but taking a direct hit to the back of the head from a rubber leprechaun.<\/p>\n
I then covered the Dolphins, but for only two seasons full-time, in 1990-91, Don Shula still going strong, Dan Marino still in his prime. One day after practice, the great PR man Harvey Greene delivered the words that, \u201cCoach wants to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I had to explain to Shula \u2014 who could melt reporters into puddles with his stare \u2014 why I had been calling him \u201cthe Cobbler\u201d in print. I\u2019m not a stammerer. But I stammered in explaining that it was my nickname for his nickname, Shoes. The Cobbler turned and walked away in silence.<\/p>\n
Shula and I developed a great relationship, though. He invited me to his home office late in his life for one of his final interviews, and told me the first thing he remembered about me was, upon introduction: \u201cYou called me Don, not Coach like all the other writers,\u201d he said. \u201cI liked that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I reminded him about \u201cthe Cobbler.\u201d He smiled.<\/p>\n
In press boxes I became skilled on deadline, thanks largely to older colleagues and mentors such as Gary Long. Early on, beside me on press row, Gary detected my early anxiety. It was, like, the second quarter of a game. He\u2019d say, \u201cWhatever you\u2019re going to write about hasn\u2019t happened yet.\u201d Noted, and remembered.<\/p>\n
I was kicked upstairs to be a Herald sports columnist, the top of the ladder, circa 1993. But it was a gradual step, because the legendary Edwin Pope was still going strong, the great Bob Rubin was, too, and a young phenom named Dan Le Batard had joined the staff.<\/p>\n
It was early in my columnist career I wrote the \u201ctrade Marino\u201d piece, probably my most remembered, notorious column. A local TV station interviewed me about it but as a joke pixilated my face and altered my voice \u2013 so controversial was that column.<\/p>\n
I made a point to be in the Dolphins locker room the day after that column appeared. I didn\u2019t hide. A mob of reporters asked Marino about my column that the team should maybe consider trading him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe may be right,\u201d Marino said.<\/p>\n
Our relationship since has been cordial, but cool. Saw Marino as recently as early this year when the Dolphins introduced their new head coach and general manager, but he has declined invites to be on my podcast. I can\u2019t blame him. I also do not regret writing that column.<\/p>\n
The heydays of the American newspaper for me was the 1980s into the mid-\u201890s or so, and I was surrounded at the Herald by a Sports staff full of superstars such as Pope, Rubin, S.L. (Scott) Price, Peter Richmond, Linda Robertson, Christine Brennan, Larry Dorman, Gary Shelton, Michelle Kaufman, Susan Miller Degnan, then Le Batard \u2014 so many others.<\/p>\n
And my editors, the bosses. Paul Anger, Richard Bush, Jorge Rojas, Alex Mena, John Devine \u2014 and the incomparable John Wolin, my true mentor along with Pope. But a special word about my current and last boss. John Devine does a heroic job leading a Herald sports staff.<\/p>\n
![\"Top](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_1615.jpg\" "\\"IMG_1615.jpg\\"")
Top left, Shaun Powell, Larry Dorman and Gary Shelton. Bottom left, Dave Hyde, Greg Cote and John Wolin worked together at the Miami Herald. Courtesy of Greg Cote <\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t a Miami Herald thing; the plight is nationwide, and worsening.<\/p>\n
Eventually I was the last columnist standing.<\/p>\n
But everything is eventual. The golden era of sports print journalism ebbed and began to die. I became a grandfather. Then came that call on my birthday morning.<\/p>\n
There was a time when I thought I might still be writing for the Herald until the day newspapers stopped landing on lawns completely. I almost made it.<\/p>\n
I have no complaint, though, about the way it ended for me, because I will not allow the imperfect ending to get in the way of my gratitude for such a long, full career of 54 years.<\/p>\n
The great former Dolphins linebacker and Hall of Famer Zach Thomas reached out to me upon the news of my layoff and noted the No. 54 had been good to both of us. I had to agree.<\/p>\n
The former great Herald publisher Dave Lawrence called me about my career and its ending. ESPN\u2019s great Tony Kornheiser called, too. I have heard from colleagues far and wide, current, recent and distant.<\/p>\n
But what stays with me most is the hundreds of readers who\u2019ve reached out, the heart-felt emails.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve felt like a man alive at his own funeral, able to hear all of the eulogies, all of the love.<\/p>\n
Several readers have spoken of appreciation for the columns of mine that intersected sports and society, such as excoriating the NFL for its blackballing of Colin Kaepernick.<\/p>\n
One reader recalled my once visiting a 103-year-old fan who had written me a letter in trembling longhand. Thank you forever, Mae Riback.<\/p>\n
And, yes, several of you have been kind enough to mention that trade-Marino column, my most infamous. (Well, that or the \u201cMcOverrated\u201d column as the Florida Panthers were about to win a Stanley Cup over Connor McDavid\u2019s Edmonton team.)<\/p>\n
What a time to be a Miami Herald writer! What a timeline.<\/p>\n
Two Super Bowls in a row for the Fins, and then the Marino era. Five national championships for Miami Hurricanes football \u2014 and a sixth looming? Two Marlins World Series wins. Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and three Heat NBA crowns. A pair of Stanley Cups for the Cats. And Lionel Messi playing for Inter Miami is still hard to believe. I was at the Herald for all of them and covered most.<\/p>\n
D-Wade sent me a note once thanking me for a column I had written noting his financial sacrifice to make the LeBron\/Big 3 era happen. But late in his career, without sufficient thought I wrote a snarky Tweet that hurt his feelings, and he let me know. (Regrets, I\u2019ve had a few\u2026)<\/p>\n
Along the way Le Batard left for ESPN, broke off to start Meadowlark Media, and I\u2019m now a regular on his Dan Le Batard Show. Since 2020 I\u2019ve had my own Greg Cote Show podcast that\u2019s also on YouTube \u2014 and that will continue even as my Herald days do not.<\/p>\n
Miami Beach, Florida, December 18, 2018- Dan Le Batard and Greg Cote on the roof of The Clevelander Hotel in South Beach where the ESPN studios are. Jose A. Iglesias jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com <\/p>\n
As for my writing?<\/p>\n
For more than half a century I cared enough about the Miami Herald \u2014 what it used to be \u2014 and about my loyal readers and about the craft to not quit now.<\/p>\n
The 10-year-old who started The Cote News isn\u2019t ready to stop seeing a blank page and imagining how to fill it with the right words, with stories, with humor and with heart.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not done yet.<\/p>\n
As you read this and I bid goodbye, and farewell, to the Herald I once loved, I am embarking on a new frontier by writing on Substack. Find me on that platform @thegregcote or just click Substack\/@TheGregCote<\/a> to join me as the ride continues.<\/p>\n On Substack I\u2019ll be continuing my weekly NFL picks, I\u2019ll resume my NFL quarterback rankings, I\u2019ll have columns on the Dolphins, Canes, Heat and lots more, plus a fresh variety of other stuff reflecting new freedom. Maybe a little music, some guests dropping by? A new world has opened for me and I eagerly invite you in.<\/p>\n Who knows \u2026 I might even publish a few old excerpts from The Cote News.<\/p>\n This story was originally published September 25, 2026 at 7:00 AM.<\/p>\n
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