I went to Placer High School with intense linebacker Jim Otto Jr.<\/p>\n
When he didn’t like the questions I was asking about the football team, Jr. gathered some teammates and picked me up and threw me in a dumpster.<\/p>\n
CBS came to our school in 1983 to do a story on great athletes and their sons. They covered a Placer Hillmen football game featuring Jim Otto Jr. on the playing field while his dad cheered him on from the stands.<\/p>\n
Jim Otto Sr.<\/a> (former all-pro center for the Oakland Raiders) owned a string of fast food restaurants in Auburn (45-minutes drive north of Sacramento).<\/p>\n In 1984, he was approached to advertise in the Auburn Journal. According to the Sports Editor Ron Knies, Otto wanted an article written about him before he’d advertise. Knies refused.<\/p>\n "Why?" I asked.<\/p>\n "You know why," Knies responded. "It’s a matter of pride."<\/p>\n Otto advertised on the local radio station KAHI AM 950 (from 1981-83, I did a weekly news report for the station and then I worked there in the news department from 1985-1987).<\/p>\n We used Otto Sr. as a color commentator for the 1985 Placer County Sheriffs vs. the Nevada County Sheriffs football game.<\/p>\n I guess the station came to view him as difficult as I replaced him for the 1986 game.<\/p>\n I was able to draw on my expertise at flag football and apply it to tackle (I never liked that form of football, too rough).<\/p>\n I guess Otto wasn’t told. I remember him laboring up the stairs to the booth with his bad knees to see the three of us going great guns without him.<\/p>\n Shortly after graduating in 1984, Jim Otto Jr. found God and became a much nicer person.<\/p>\n Jim Otto Sr. had his right leg amputated on August 1, 2007.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I went to Placer High School with intense linebacker Jim Otto Jr. When he didn’t like the questions I was asking about the football team, Jr. gathered some teammates and picked me up and threw me in a dumpster. CBS … Continue reading