By Sonia Dasgupta
Walking along the Green to class, university students may hear a faint whistle chant in the distance. Suddenly, a spunky Border Collie appears out of no where, swiftly running across the path of students rushing to class. Soon a shirtless man, with glowing white locks, runs along the grass full speed, whistling. He follows in the first dog’s direction and then another Border Collie follows him.
Any university student that regularly walks around campus has seen this so called “Dog Whistler” otherwise known as Steve Cottrell. This 55-year-old native Delawarean has a Facebook page called “WTF Is Up With That Whistling Shirtless Dog Runner?” dedicated to him and his dogs.
“I don’t have time to be online,” Steve says in response to learning about his page. “What people do in their spare time is their business.”
As of Wednesday morning there were 2,649 members in this groups, with 270 wall posts, various pictures of Steve and the dogs in Newark and a discussion board filled with heated debates about controversial things he has been accused of saying.
Steve is an alumnus of the Class of 1982 and graduated as a chemical engineering major. Although he frequents bars for the social aspects on weekends now, he says it was quite different when he was at the university.
“I didn’t have much of a social life back then,” Steve says, “being a chemical engineer, I didn’t get out.”
He says he grew up in the Browntown area of Wilmington off Maryland Avenue. When he came to Newark for college, he bought a house that he still owns. Although he owns a house in Newark, he lives across the border in Pennsylvania and in the past he lived in Villanova and Lancaster County for a short period of time.
After graduating from the university, Steve worked as an engineer for five years, then moved into programming. He currently is involved with environmental work, where he removes invasive plants from their preserves.
Steve is training for a marathon in Philadelphia on Nov. 19 and that is the reason why he always seems to be running. He is trying to break his own record for the 26-mile race. Steve runs throughout the day in between shifts at work, and for approximately three hours. His whistling is a breathing technique.
“I get more oxygen,” he says, “so I’m able to run faster.”
Steve says he has run four marathons in two hours and 25 minutes. He has run the Boston Marathon six times, the New York Marathon five times and in 1994 he also ran the Rodderdam Marathon in the Netherlands. His adventurous nature led Steve to hitchhike to Alaska and the best part was when he traveled through British Columbia and the Yukon in the dead of winter, he says.
Steve says an unforgettable moment was when he ran with Juma Ikanga, the New York Marathon record holder from Tanzania.
“We ran along the Charles River together in Boston,” he says. “That was the highlight of my life.”
One of his more memorable moments came from his experience at ‘THE’ Woodstock, as he refers to it with enthusiasm.
“It was probably the biggest party of the twentieth century,” Steve says, “no probably the biggest party of all time.”
“On a tiny hill a half a million people were packed. Peter Townsend asks for silence. There was dead silence. He then asked them all to light a match. Everyone lit a match and there were a half a million flames,” he says.
Steve’s dogs love running with him as well. He ran with dogs since he was 10. Spooky was his first dog, a mutt Labrador, followed by a half a dozen others.
Cody and Pistol, his two running buddies, have been his since they were six weeks old. Cody, 6, and Pistol, 2, are brothers but not from the same litter. Steve says he bought Border Collies because he had heard they were the smartest types of dog and his two friends have not let him down.
Cody can walk the length of Main Street backwards and Pistol has figured out how to use crosswalks.
“He must have watched me one day,” Steve says. “He walked up to the side of the crosswalk, waited for the cars to stop and then sprinted across.”
Steve says he cannot take the credit. They are just fast learners, he says. Cody and Steve were featured in Runner’s World magazine in April for Cody’s ability to run marathons.
“No one can believe that a dog can stay focused for 3 hours, especially since they run off the leash,” he says. “They never cease to amaze me.”
He says Cody is the more loyal dog. This proves to be a fact, since Cody will never take his eyes off Steve.
“If you stand in front of his line of sight, he’ll move until he sees me,” he says. “It’ll tire you out.”
He says that Cody is also more outgoing and a Frisbee-lover while Pistol is more affectionate.
When he is not running or with his dogs, Steve says he frequents coffee shops to read or just to “shoot the breeze” with the locals. This self-proclaimed marathon-dog-escort says he can be found reading Shakespeare in his spare time as well. He is also the landlord to four sophomore girls who live in a house across the street from Morris Library.
Sophomore Alan Wilkinson started the page on Facebook on Sept. 21.
He says he did not realize that so many people would join his page so soon.
“I was curious about him,” Wilkinson says, “Who is he? What’s he do?”
Wilkinson claims Steve yelled “murderer” at him when he was walking in his ROTC uniform by Trabant.
“That raised all the questions,” he says referring to why he started the page.
Steve says he did yell at the ROTC members because he believes that their message does not belong on campus.
“Students come to the university to learn how to solve problems in a peaceful way,” Steve says. “They represent a violent view.”
He says he participated in protests against the Vietnam War when he was in high school and believes that students now are very apathetic.
“It’s your future, if you want to live in a world or violence, ignore the war,” he advises students. “Show your opposition. If you don’t your future will be controlled by people who force, instead of by a consensus.”
Senior Dan Landsman however feels offended by Steve’s supposed comments.
“He calls us ‘baby killers, rapists and murderers,’ ” Landsman says, when discussing what some ROTC members have experienced.
Landsman says he is opposed to Steve being on campus, especially because if someone had screamed something racist down the street people would probably hate the guy.
“It just bothers me because no one cares, because people agree,” Landsman says. “There’s a lot of support for this guy and his beliefs.”
