WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Wake Forest play by play announcer Stan Cotten will be honored with the Lindsey Nelson Award, given annually to an outstanding broadcaster who has helped advance the game of college football. The award will be presented by the Knoxville Touchdown Club on April 13 at the East Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame brunch at the Southern Depot in Knoxville. Cotten will also be recognized at Tennessee’s Orange and White game later the same day.
Cotten is in his 23rd year as the “Voice of the Demon Deacons” on the Wake Forest Sports Network from Learfield IMG College. He is a four-time North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year recipient as voted on by his peers in the National Sports Media Association. Along with his play-by-play duties, Cotten is the host of both the “Dave Clawson Show” and the “Danny Manning Show” each week of the respective football and basketball seasons and also hosts the Wake Forest Podcast ‘Lunch with Stan’ on the Wake Forest athletics website GoDeacs.com.
Cotten came to Winston-Salem in the fall of 1996 after spending four years in Huntington, West Virginia, as the radio play-by-play ‘Voice of the Thundering Herd’ at Marshall University. Prior to his stint at Marshall, Cotten spent twelve years in his home state of Tennessee working in both radio and television.
Cotten is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, where he graduated from Farragut High School and the University of Tennessee. His broadcast career began in 1980 while still a student at UT. His first on-air job was as a sports reporter and anchor at WIVK-FM, the flagship station of Tennessee’s Vol Network. In the fall of 1980 Cotten began calling the football and basketball radio play-by-play at nearby Carson-Newman University. He would add television anchor to his resume during that time, serving as the weeknight sports anchor for the local Knoxville NBC and CBS affiliates.
Cotten is married to the former Patti Thomas, a graduate of South Young High School in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee and the University of Tennessee College of Law.
The fall of 2019 will be Cotten’s 40th behind the mic calling college football and basketball on the radio.
