It is just another late fall day in Maine. The leaves are about all gone. Snow tires are being put on cars in preparation for what’s to come. The skies are grayer than a battleship, and it is chilly.

But out on the left coast it’s an entirely different picture. On the same late fall day in San Diego, it’s just another disgusting picture-perfect afternoon. The sun, as usual, is fixed, shining brightly. The temperature is in the mid-70s. Dolphins laugh it up for the tourists at Sea World. Same as it ever was.

Down on the sidelines at Qualcomm Park where the Chargers are getting ready to play, a man sprints to the sidelines from a microphone stand in the middle of the field. He steps into a line formed down the sidelines as the national anthem is performed. As the song is being sung, he notices that his shoes have become wet and are getting wetter. As the song ends, the man looks up to see where the water is coming from.

“It was Junior Seau,” Joey Cota says. “Junior Seau was sweating on my shoes, man.”

Did Joey Cota use the word “man” often when he attended Orono High School? Don’t know. But it’s part of his vocabulary now. And it’s usually followed by a quick, contagious laugh. Let’s call it, with apologies to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Californization of Joey Cota.

Cota has become accustomed to being around high-profile people. His job with MSI, an events production company, puts him in situations where he has worked around some of the country’s heaviest hitters – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Tony Gwynn, to drop a name or three.

Unlike Seau, Clinton and Bush didn’t sweat on Cota’s shoes.

“No, man,” he says. And then there’s that laugh.

Not that Cota ran out and bought a surfer’s dictionary or has been overly influenced by the Jeff Spicolis he undoubtedly encounters in the Ocean Beach area of the city where he lives. He was, after all, weaned on “ayup.”

Cota, 29, is a 1991 graduate of Orono High, where he played on a state championship football team and a basketball team that lost to York by two points in the Class B state championship game.

“I didn’t play a lot. I was a little guy. I was about 5-6 or -7 and weighed all of a buck-25, buck-30 so I got out there at certain times. There were a lot of good players on that team, man. It was fun to be part of the team,” he said.

After high school, Cota attended the University of Maine where he graduated with degrees in English and French in 1997. He worked at jobs in coastal Maine for a while before deciding it was time for a change.

“I put my dog in my car and drove across country. I had saved up some money and I just wanted to try something different,” Cota says.

He found work with MSI not long after settling in San Diego.

“I was sharing an apartment with a girl, and her boyfriend at the time worked for this production company and they needed extra guys,” Cota says.

MSI provides sound, lighting and video for special events. Cota primarily works for the company at the San Diego Convention Center where it is contracted for events such as the Latino Convention held during the 2000 presidential campaign. That’s where Cota was working when Bush and Clinton made appearances along with comedian Paul Rodriguez.

“I’ve worked events where Huey Lewis gave a motivational speech. There are a lot of others – Whoopi Goldberg, I saw the group Chicago perform. Most recently I went up to San Francisco for a Forbes Magazine function. Steve Forbes was there to speak,” Cota says.

But it’s the sporting events that he is most attracted to. He managed, through a friend, to get assignments to some stadium events such as Chargers football and Padres baseball.

“The stadium has its own sound system. It comes down. We set up our sound to go up into the stands,” Cota said.

He worked Qualcomm the night of Gwynn’s final home game with the Padres.

“We did the sound support for that. It was special. When the game ended they wanted us to set up quickly before the crowd had a chance to leave,” Cota says.

He says it was a “strange feeling” running across the baseball infield with 60,000 people in the park.

“Barry Bonds ran past. He was running in off the field. The fireworks show was incredible.”

Cota is considering becoming a teacher. He says he has taken several tests necessary to work toward that profession. He would teach and says he would “free-lance” with companies like MSI.

Although he lives in Ocean Beach, Cota hasn’t taken up surfing.

“No, the ‘Jaws’ movie freaked me out,” he explained. “I do some rollerblading. There’s no ice [for skating], which is unfortunate, man,” and there’s that laugh again.

He saw some ice recently, when he returned home to spend Christmas with his mother, Julia, and his father, Ray, who is the public address announcer at UMaine women’s basketball games.

“That was really nice. What they say is true,” Joey Cota said. “Once you get out there and see a lot of places, home is pretty good. I could see myself being there again sometime.”

Cool.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, (800) 310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.