Former OSU Coach Featured as Visiting Lecturer
September 01, 2010 11:11 AM | General
September 1, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — John Cooper, former head football coach at The Ohio State University, will visit West Virginia University as the 2010 Don Nehlen visiting lecturer in coaching series.
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Cooper will be on campus Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010 to offer two lectures. He will speak to students at 11 a.m. and will offer a second presentation at 7 p.m. Both events will be held in the Erickson Alumni Center and are free and open to the public.
Cooper was born and raised in Tennessee. He spent two years serving in the U.S. Army, following high school graduation. After receiving discharge, he enrolled at Iowa State University. He played football all four years at Iowa State, served as team captain and won the Most Valuable Player Award his senior season. After graduating, Cooper embarked upon a football coaching career starting at Iowa State, and then moving on to Oregon State University, UCLA, University of Kansas and University of Kentucky.
In 1977, Cooper became head football coach at the University of Tulsa, quickly turning around the losing program. His teams won five straight Missouri Valley Conference championships from 1980 to 1984. He then became head coach at Arizona State University for three seasons, winning a PAC-10 conference championship in 1986. That same year Arizona State defeated the University of Michigan in the Rose Bowl.
On December 31, 1987 Cooper became the twenty-first head football coach at The Ohio State University. He remained at Ohio State through the 2000 season. Although he experienced a losing season his first year with the team, Cooper always maintained a winning record in subsequent campaigns with the Buckeyes. He totaled a record of 111 wins, 43 losses and four ties. He currently serves as a consultant with the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Don Nehlen Lecture Series was established in 2001 after Nehlen retired as the University’s head football coach. Past speakers have included Jerry West, former Mountaineer basketball playmaker, U.S. Olympic team member and NBA legend, former Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and Jim Boeheim, the current men’s basketball head coach at Syracuse.
Nehlen was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. This year’s series is sponsored West Virginia Friends of Coal and WVU’s College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences. For more information, contact Kim Cameon at Kimberly.cameon@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-0827.
