Cote: Jim Otto, RIP: ‘Mr. Raider’ was also early great in Miami Hurricanes football history | Opinion

Farewell to the first truly great — all-time, place-in-history great — football players in University of Miami history.

Jim Otto passed away late Sunday at age 86.

He will forever be the first former Hurricane inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, an honor that came in 1980 in his first year of eligibility. He was named one of four centers on the NFL’s All-Century Team marking the league’s first 100 seasons.

Five other Hurricanes earned All-America honors earlier in the 1950s and two other early stars followed in George Mira Sr. and Ted Hendricks. But Otto was the first to wear the uniform who was destined for a level of greatness the sport’s history would indelibly record.

He was best known for his career as an Oakland Raider; “Mr. Raider” is his nickname, nobody else’s. But what preceded those days in the old AFL, what led pro football to discover him, were his two season playing linebacker for the Hurricanes in 1958-59.

Oddly, his Canes teams were not very good those two years under legendary coach Andy Gustafson, whom Otto thanked in his Canton inductions. Those teams went 2-8 and 6-4, although Otto directly led to the quarterback at the time, Fran Curci, being an All-American.

Otto distinctively wore uniform number 00, but, doing the grunt work of a center and linebacker, he was easy to underappreciate. His mediocre teams didn’t help.

Miami was still a quarter century from its first of five national championships in 1983. But Otto had earned his place here near the front of the line that begins what led to all that would follow

The now-Las Vegas Raiders, on Otto’s passing: ”The Original Raider. The personification of consistency, Jim’s influence on the American Football League and professional football as a whole cannot be overstated. His leadership and tenacity were a hallmark of the dominant Raider teams of the 1960s and 70s.”

Current Raiders defensive star Maxx Crosby called Otto “absolute legend & incredible person.”

Otto remained involved in Raiders alumni events until the end.

In his 15 years with the team he never missed a game because of injuries, playing in 210 consecutive regular-season games and 308 in a row overall despite undergoing nine operations on his knees during his career. He embodied the warrior aspect of making a living doing this.

It is said Otto underwent more than 50 surgeries after he finished playing related to football injuries. Joint replacements, arthritis, back and neck problems. His right leg was amputated in 2007. Otto also had prostate cancer.

“I can take any type of surgery in the world except for when it comes to something that’s internal,” he once said. “When it’s cosmetic, fixing your nose, fixing your knee, fixing your elbows or whatever, that’s nothing.”

He was a native of Wausau, Wisconsin, born near the end of the Great Depression to a family fighting poverty. His family lived for a time in a chicken coop. It was a whole new world for him when he came to the University of Miami, and for him a whole new world and future would open up there.

He went undrafted by the NFL in 1959 but signing with the Raiders of the new AFL the following next year, perhaps the first great find for Al Davis. Otto was one only 20 players to play all 10 years of the AFL’s existence prior to the merger.

Otto leaves behind his wife, a son and daughter-in-law and 14 grandchildren.

“Throughout my career, I worked hard to stay a level above everyone else,” Otto said once. “Every day I walked on to the field, I was the best center. That’s the way I wanted to be. Those were always my expectations.”

It all began with Miami, back when the televisions were black and white., back before ESPN SportsCenter and before Super Bowls.

Dig back that far if you want to find where the greatness started that foreshadowed the glory days of Hurricanes football.

Jim Otto was there.