Talk:Bill Cottrell

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Narutolovehinata5 talk 13:39, 19 June 2025 (UTC)
Closing per WP:DYKTIMEOUT.

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that football player Bill Cottrell was the first black center in the NFL?

• Source: Ex-Detroit Lions OL Bill Cottrell, NFL's first Black center, dies at 80

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Alejandro Finisterre
  • Comment: To complete QPQ within 24 hours.

5x expanded by BeanieFan11 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 326 past nominations.

BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:51, 9 April 2025 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: - Not done
Overall: Article was expanded 5 times within 7 days of nomination. Article is more than 1,500 characters in prose and is written in a neutral tone. Earwig picked up an unlikely copyright violation of 30.6%, with most of it having to do with direct quotes from Cottrell himself. If there is a way to reduce those, that would be preferable. The hook is a "(subject) is..." quote, but I think it's still interesting because it's notable. National Football League should be wikilinked in the hook, though. A QPQ is still needed at this time. lullabying (talk) 09:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• @Lullabying: Added NFL link to the hook. You might have missed that I already included a QPQ, listed above: Template:Did you know nominations/Alejandro Finisterre. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:30, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
  • Issues resolved. Good to go. lullabying (talk) 07:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Pulled per concerns raised at WT:DYK#Queue 5 (7 May, 00:00). We'll need a new hook here, one that is less likely to be challenged. @BeanieFan11 and Lullabying: How about:

ALT1 ... that after his NFL career, Bill Cottrell became a personnel supervisor at the Ford Motor Company?

ALT2 ... that Bill Cottrell helped organize chapel services during his time playing for the Detroit Lions?

Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:33, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I could live with those being the hook, but IMO the original hook is more 'hooky'. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Given how that "first" claim was objected to, it might be for the best to move away from it. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 04:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Lullabying: As the original reviewed, can you determine if ALT1 and/or ALT2 are approved? Z1720 (talk) 14:57, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Definitely. Both look great and I prefer ALT1. lullabying (talk) 02:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@Lullabying: Please add a symbol indicating approval.--Launchballer 06:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Good to go. lullabying (talk) 04:32, 2 June 2025 (UTC

I have pulled the hook per Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Queue 3 (13 June 00:00). SL93 (talk) 17:05, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

@SL93: Is ALT2 an okay hook or is a new hook needed? @BeanieFan11: Please suggest alternative options. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

What's wrong with ... that Bill Cottrell went from being an "unheralded" high school player for a poor team to a starter in the NFL? No one seemed to oppose that option. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:14, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

• @SL93, RoySmith, and Launchballer: This nomination already hit DYKTIMEOUT a while back: is BeanieFan11's proposal above suitable, or should this just be closed? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:01, 19 June 2025 (UTC)
  • My suggestion is to drop it. This is exactly why TIMEOUT was invented. I don't see anything special about this particular person, and on top of my usual "we've got more nominations than we can handle" argument, I'll add that we've got too many football nominations; the other day we ran two football hooks in single set. RoySmith (talk) 13:33, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Bill Cottrell/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: BeanieFan11 (talk · contribs) 21:05, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: DrOrinScrivello (talk · contribs) 18:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I'll take on this review. Initial comments to come today or tomorrow. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 18:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Comments

Happy to see you working on a Lion bio rather than all those gross Packer articles (kidding of course). This article looks to be in good shape, as per your usual offerings; most of my comments should be fairly minor quibbles, and I'll try to mention when they're just suggestions and not necessarily part of the GA criteria. Prose review first.

• @DrOrinScrivello: Thanks for the review. I think I addressed everything. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:28, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Everything looks good to me. Congrats on the Good Article! DrOrinScrivello (talk) 13:13, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Prose

Lead

• In my opinion, you can lose both of the (COFL) abbreviations in the lead and body. You never refer to it solely by the acronym, and unlike the NFL and AFL, it's not a popular enough league for people to know it by its acronym. Just my opinion though, I won't fight you if you leave it.
  • Cut.

Early life

• but was an "unheralded" player due to Chester's poor records Change to "due to the Chester football team's poor records"
  • Done.

College career

• finishing with a mark of 49 ft, 10 and 1/2 inches I'm back and forth on whether this needs a {{convert}} template or not. It's a measurement, but it's also an official scoring figure. You're more experienced with sports editing than I am, so I'll trust your judgment.
  • Added the measurement in meters (15.2 m).

• Cottrell was noted for his size (standing at 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) and 266 pounds (121 kg)) Speaking of convert templates: each of these need the disp=sqbr parameter since they appear within parentheses. Also, it should probably be "and weighing 266 pounds".
  • Done.

• Cottrell had been timed at 10.3-10.5 seconds Since this is a range it needs an endash.
  • Done.

Professional career

• One BLESTO scout described him as "one of the best linemen I've seen this year." Per MOS:LQ the period should go outside the quotation mark.
  • Done.

• He said that that year, he often stayed at the team's facilities Can this be reworded to remove the double "that"? "He remembered often staying at the team's facilities that year for an hour after practice..." maybe, or something similar.
  • Reworded.

• Cottrell finished having appeared in 63 NFL games, 10 as a starter Change to "finished his career having appeared..."
  • Done.

Later life and deeath

• Cottrell was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and during his career with the Lions, helped organize chapel services. Choose your own grammar adventure: either a comma needs to go between the "and" and the "during", or a comma can go after "Athletes" and the comma after "Lions" can be replaced with "he".
  • Added comma after "and".

I think that's it for prose. It'll probably be tomorrow before I get to the rest of the review, but we should be able to knock this out pretty quickly. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 20:19, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Source review

I'm going to check ref #s 2, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, and 19 as of this revision.

• #2: (a) Y (b) Y (c) Y
• #4: (a) Y (b) Y
• #7: (a) Y (b) Y (c) Y (d – k) N
  • I was quite confused for a couple of minutes, but finally realized that you got your wires crossed here: #7d through #7k are cited to Moore at the Daily Intelligencer when they should be cited to Westcott at the Delaware County Daily Times. All of those 7s should be 2s, in other words (or, using your refname system, the "auto1"s should be "auto4"s). Thankfully they all check out, so once you switch the refnames this will be kosher.
    • Swapped "d" through "k" for Moore to Westcott.

Short break, more to follow soon. Oh, and adding a ping BeanieFan11 since I neglected to do so yesterday. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 15:32, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

• #10: Y
• #12: Y
• #14: Y
• #17: Y
• #19: Y

Just those refnames to fix and the source check will be good to go. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Other

Breadth, NPOV, and stability

• There's obviously more information that I would like to know, but you can only get what reliable sources give, and you've done the best with what you have to work with. The only area I could see being expanded would be including a little more on his brother (e.g. did they ever play against each other, and maybe the fact that according to that Pro Football Archives link they're still the only two Delaware Valley alumni to play in the NFL). This is up to you though.
  • I added that they are still the only two Delaware Valley NFL players. Their teams played each other in 1969, but I'm not sure if both played in the game.

• Article is stable and written in a neutral POV.

Image review and copyright

• Only one image, but that's to be expected, and it's a good quality photo. Properly tagged with a free use rationale, and well-captioned (I always recommend adding alt text, but it's not a GA requirement).

• No copyright concerns flagged by Earwig or during my source review. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TarnishedPath (talk) 10:48, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Bill Cottrell went from being an "unheralded" high school player for a poor team to a starter in the NFL?

• Source: DelCo Daily Times

• • ALT1: ... that football player Bill Cottrell was the first black center in the NFL? Source: Free Press
  • ALT2: ... that it was thought that black men could not play the "thinking man's'" position of center in the NFL until the career of Bill Cottrell? Source: same
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Barbados–Indonesia relations (2/2)

Improved to Good Article status by BeanieFan11 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 426 past nominations.

BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:01, 13 October 2025 (UTC).

• Comment: future reviewer, ALT1 is permissible; see 4meter4's comment on Template:Did you know nominations/Jocelyn Borgella. I myself will not review this. Roast (talk) 21:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
• The article is new enough (promoted to GA on 13 October 2025), is long enough (5449 characters of prose), has no apparent copyright issues (per GA review), and is presentable (per GA review and readthrough). I find the hook hard to read, where "unheralded" and "starter" seem to be jargon and "poor" is ambiguous. I think ALT2 could be seen as contentious when it doesn't specify who thought this. So I would prefer ALT1, which is cited, short enough, and interesting. A similar hook was previously pulled, but according to User:Guerreroast, it is permissible in the current nomination. QPQ is done. I am passing ALT1. – Editør (talk) 10:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

  @BeanieFan11 and Editør: ALT1 definitely should not be phrased that confidently, as the source states "[Cottrell] is believed to be the first Black center". Adding that hedging to the phrasing would definitely detract from its hookiness, though, so can one of the other hooks be rephrased to address the concerns in Editør's review, or another hook proposed? (please  mention me on reply) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:55, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  The source also says "NFL's first Black center" in the title and "He was the first." in a quote, though. – Editør (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  "NFL's first black center" is an exceptional claim, and thus ideally we need to have multiple strong sources and not just a single reference for it. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:53, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

  Will look into this tomorrow. BeanieFan11 (talk) 04:24, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

  headlines are not reliable sources. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:42, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

  @BeanieFan11: It has been a few days since your comment, please respond to the above concern. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:07, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

  How about ... that according to an NFL alumni attorney, it was thought that black men could not play the "thinking man's'" position of center in the NFL until the career of Bill Cottrell? / ... that Bill Cottrell went from playing for a high school team that had 32-consecutive losses to starting for an NFL team? BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:45, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  The first option seems too complicated. The second sounds better. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 09:32, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

• @TechnoSquirrel69: This nomination is turning two months old in a few days, could you please make a decision regarding the new hooks? Editør has not edited since November 29, so a new reviewer is needed anyway. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 09:16, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

  Sure, I'm just going to format the hooks for the promoter's benefit:

  • ALT2a: ... that according to an NFL alumni attorney, it was thought that black men could not play the "thinking man's'" position of center in the NFL until the career of Bill Cottrell?
  • ALT3: ... that Bill Cottrell went from playing for a high school team that had 32 consecutive losses to starting for an NFL team?

  I'll assume that Editør did a full review of the article and carry that through. I agree with NLH's concern about ALT2a being a mouthful. ALT3 is verified by the sources in the article and seems interesting enough, so it is approved. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:19, 10 December 2025 (UTC)