Each month, Eagle Radio in Great Bend is recognizing groups or individuals that make a big impact on our community. This Appreciation Month is highlighting coaches.
By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
If anyone could be called a coaching legend at Hoisington High School, it would be girls golf coach Bruce Cooper. He took over the girls' golf program in 1980. Six years later he was named the Kansas Coach of the Year. In 2017, he was chosen as the top girls' golf coach in the nation.
Cooper went to Fort Hays State University (FHSU) in the early 1970s to become a biology and science teacher.
“Teaching was first,” Cooper recounts. “I didn’t really have aspirations to coach. I just wanted to teach.”
When the time came for him to find a student teaching position in 1974, Hoisington wasn’t his first choice. He and a friend decided they wanted to student teach together. In those days, they were allowed to apply to three high schools.
“We both put down Russell for our number one pick,” Cooper said. “We both put down Colby second because I’m from Hoxie. We could have lived at my mom’s house and driven to Colby every day. Then he brought up Hoisington. I said ‘Why do you want to put Hoisington for our third place to student teach?’ He says ‘I don’t know. We don’t know anybody there and it would be a good place to go, not knowing anybody. So we did that. Well, he gets Colby, and he student teaches there. I get Hoisington and I student taught here.”
A student teaching position at Hoisington High had one big advantage that year. The high school principal, Harlan Boye, told Cooper he would only be accepted as a student teacher if he agreed to stay on full-time after he graduated from FHSU. Cooper liked the idea and has been teaching at Hoisington High ever since.
It didn’t take long before Cooper ended up on the sidelines as a Hoisington coach. Boye and Hoisington Schools Superintendent Walt Smith needed an assistant boys’ basketball coach in 1974.
“They said we’ll pay you $400 to be assistant boys’ basketball coach. And I was so naïve and green, I asked ‘Is that $400 a month?’ They said ‘No, that’s $400 a year.’ I was embarrassed. I didn’t know any better. I thought ‘I don’t know what you pay coaches. Obviously not very much. $400 a year.’ And I took it.”
Cooper stayed with the boys’ basketball program until 2004, serving as head coach for two of those years. However, he didn’t leave basketball behind. In 2006, he was asked to be an assistant coach for the girls’ basketball team, a position he still holds. But Cooper has made his biggest mark in the Hoisington sports world as a golf coach.
Not many children in western Kansas get the opportunity to play much golf. Cooper, however, was raised on a farm near Hoxie, Kansas that was next to a golf course.
“I think the number nine hole was right by our pasture when I grew up as a kid,” Cooper recalled. “So we actually made some wooden clubs and went out there as youngsters and hit a rubber ball. We didn’t even have a real golf ball. Then as we got a little older, I had two brothers, so all three of us ordered a set of golf clubs to share. Then we got to playing all the time out there.”
That experience came in handy when Hoisington High needed help with its golf programs.
“In 1980, both golf coaches quit, girls and boys,” Cooper said. “The AD [Athletic Director] came up to me and said ‘Would you coach girls golf?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ because I liked it. And then he said ‘how about boys golf?’ And I said ‘well, I can do both of them. They probably ought to be the same guy.’ So I took both the girls’ golf program in the fall and the boys’ golf program in the spring.”
Since then, Hoisington’s girls’ golf teams have won four state titles, finished 2nd twice and come in 3rd five times.
However, it was a 4th place finish in 2017 that Cooper can’t get out of his mind. He believed his team that year had an excellent chance to win a state title. But it didn’t work out that way.
“I’m still now just getting over it,” Cooper commented. “I keep track of my averages on all the years that we went to state and we had the best average ever.”
There were other good teams in the state tournament that year, but Cooper hoped for the best.
“Syracuse ended up winning it, but we should have gotten second. We didn’t. We tied, so you go to the next girl to break the tie. We go to the fifth girl and we’re still tied.”
It was the sixth girl on the Hoisington team that came up short by one stroke.
“So we missed taking a trophy,” Cooper lamented. “Of all the years, one of the best teams I’ve ever had, and we ended up taking fourth.”
What came after that was as surprising to Cooper as anyone else. He was named the Kansas Coach of the Year for girls' golf for the second time in his career. But that’s not the most surprising part of the story. As Kansas Coach of the Year, Cooper was eligible to be considered National Coach of the Year.
A computer glitch almost put a stop to Cooper’s chances of achieving that honor.
“They give you this opportunity to fill out online a whole bunch of stuff to enter National Coach of the Year,” Cooper explained. “So I’m online during my ‘plan period’ typing this stuff up. They wanted to know some of your community services, some of your background, how you got started. They wanted to know your philosophy. It was long. I got maybe three-fourths done and my ‘plan period’ was over. I had to teach. I forgot to save it.”
When Cooper got back to his computer later that day, everything had been erased.
“So I did it again, and this time I saved it,” Cooper said. “Well, that didn’t work. Save didn’t work. I went home to my wife [Jerree] and I said ‘I’m not going to register or give my background in coaching because I’ll never get national coach of the year. You kidding me? That’s all 50 states. I’m wasting my time.
“She said, 'You're making it way too hard. Just go in there and keep it simple and fill it out.’”
“Well, that’s the third time I did it. I know I typed different stuff, out of order, probably didn’t make sense. But I did mention my wife really helped me in coaching because she kept telling me, ‘Not everybody’s addicted to this sport like you are. Don’t expect your athletes to love it as much as you do and put that much work into it.’”
“And I put that in my letter to the national committee,” Cooper said. “And then I found out later in January of 2018 I won National Coach of the Year.”
The honor was commemorated by a plaque presented to him by the National Federation of State High School Associations.
As the Hoisington girls’ golf season gets underway this fall, you’ll still be able to find Cooper leading team practices at the Lake Barton Golf Club. He is optimistic about his team of six girls.
“We’re pretty good,” Cooper commented. “I have four very experienced girls coming back.”
After 47 years as a high school coach, Cooper describes how coaching has helped him be a mentor to hundreds of Hoisington High School students.
“You get to know the kids really well,” Cooper said. “You get to know them on a level that nobody else gets to know them, not even a teacher. You get to know them when they’re stressed. You get to know them when they’re excited.”
From student teacher to National Coach of the Year and beyond, Cooper is satisfied with the way things turned out for him.
“Hoisington has been tremendous for me,” Cooper said. “I told my wife there are a lot of things that you don’t have control over, but I was sure lucky to meet her and come here to Hoisington and teach. It’s been really good. They've been good to me. They still are. I guess one of these days it’s going to be over and I’ll just have memories, but I enjoy the kids coming back. It’s still exciting.”
Read the previous Appreciation Month stories by clicking HERE.