Coast Guard set to end search for boaters
CLEARWATER, Florida (CNN) -- The Coast Guard's search for three missing boaters, including two NFL players, will be called off at sundown Tuesday, Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Close said.
Ex-college football player Nick Schuyler clings to an overturned boat Monday in this Coast Guard photo.
1 of 3 more photos » Close's announcement came a day after the Coast Guard rescued a fourth man who had been with the other three on a Saturday fishing trip off Florida's Gulf Coast.
Still missing are Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, NFL free agent Corey Smith and former University of South Florida football player William Bleakley. The Coast Guard began searching for them early Sunday after learning they hadn't returned from their trip.
"It's just gut wrenching, and it's just left me zapped of any energy," Marquis Cooper's father, Bruce Cooper, said Tuesday before Close announced the search would soon end.
"I know this, he's a fighter," Bruce Cooper said, adding that his son was an undersized linebacker both at the University of Washington and in the NFL. "He doesn't back down. He's just an extreme fighter. What I'm holding on to is that he's out in the water right now, just fighting."
Marquis Cooper loved being on the water and was an experienced boater, his father said. Bruce Cooper had recently taken a 14-hour fishing trip with his son. Watch Bruce Cooper say that his son loved fishing »
"I just told him I didn't feel comfortable looking in all directions and not seeing land," he said. "We laughed and joked about it. That's just who he is. It's his love."
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/03/florida.missing.boaters/index.html#cnnSTCText