special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica prepared to fill shoes of Mike Westhoff

[F.Chowds]

Ben Kotwica is starting his first season as the Jets’ special teams coordinator, but considering his background, dealing with AFC East opponents should not intimidate him.

 

Kotwica, who replaced Mike Westhoff this offseason as the head man of the Jets special teams, is a military veteran who served in the Iraq War as a captain. The coordinator believes his military background has a strong correlation to the leadership qualities he has a coach.

 

"Yes. I think when you were in the position as I was as a company commander, in the military, there's a huge element of leadership there," Kotwica told the the Daily News. "As a coach, you're also a leader. As a captain in the military, you're also coaching, you're mentoring."

 

The coordinator flew Apache helicopters for eight years, including a tour of Bosnia in 2000. He was stationed in Korea in 2001 and when he returned, Kotwica began to think about the possibility of coaching football. He had played at Army, and had always been told he had the requisite cognizance of the game to be a coach.

 

"I was 5-10, 195 pounds, so there was certain characteristics that you had to have in a big man’s game to kind of survive," said Kotwica. "Those qualities were ones that people had always mentioned."

 

That desire to coach was temporarily derailed, however, when Kotwica landed in Iraq in March of 2004, and stayed for 13 months. He enjoyed his military experience on the whole, but called his time in Iraq "challenging."

 

"There's a little bit of correlation there that you make between the military and athletics. You get put in situations, whether it be in the military or be athletics, where a lot of how you go about your day-to-day operations is the people surrounded by you," he said. "Just like the NFL's a business, the military is a business. There's a lot of carryover there. Just being able to command troops, being in front of the group. Leading, has had a tremendous carryover into what I do now day-to-day.

Westhoff, who retired after last year, believes Kotwica has what it takes to succeed with the Jets.

 

"Being involved as a combat helicopter pilot gives you a lot of experience in pressure situations and leading through those," said Westhoff "Being able to communicate. He's got those experiences."

 

In 2005 and 2006, following his tour in Iraq, Kotwica coached at the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School at Fort Montmouth, before Bob Sutton — Kotwica's coach at Army and then the Jets defensive coordinator — came calling to see if Kotwica wanted to jump to the NFL. He did.

 

Kotwica didn’t have a particular affinity or attraction to special teams. He had a defensive background first, and, growing up in Chicago, fell in love with Buddy Ryan's 1985 Bears defense. With special teams, he almost fell into it because of the opportunities in front of him. He was hired to work on defense quality control and special teams for Eric Mangini, the Jets head coach at the time, but shifted to special teams full time when Rex Ryan, Buddy’s son, was hired in 2009. Ryan brought in a new defensive staff, and because Kotwica had worked so well with Westhoff, became the assistant special teams coordinator.

 

When Westhoff decided 2012 would be his last season, Kotwica was the obvious choice as successor.

 

Westhoff said he'd seen Kotwica develop a strong connection with the players, who often would make a last stop in Kotwica's office to watch tape one more time before they went home at night.

 

Westhoff would be a hard man to replicate; stern and fiery when he needed to be but always honest. Kotwica is more understated, particularly when it comes to loud expletives on the field, but Westhoff said there are probably more similarities than differences between the two.

 

"I'm a little more vociferous, that's a polite way of saying it," said Westhoff. "(But) Ben is every bit as aggressive and commanding as I was."

Louie Aguiar, the new assistant special teams coordinator, worked with the Jets during last preseason and has therefore worked with both Westhoff and now under Kotwica.

 

"Looking at Westhoff, I got him at the end of his career. He's very knowledgeable, a great coach," said Aguiar. "Ben's picked up a lot of that knowledge from him and is designing a lot of punt returns, kickoff returns, and I can see the brain working when we're looking at stuff. They're minds are always trying to make the team better."

 

[Larz]

rule #1

 

no tripping

[Apache 51]

 

Stay in your lanes!