Lessons on Passion
(from Coach Billy Cooper)

Coach Billy Cooper. 

  
Photo taken from the CHS 1960 yearbook.  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls
Class of 1962 
 

High School football began for me as a Sophomore. After our first junior varsity (JV) game, each player got a hard swat from the Coach’s big paddle for our half-hearted play in our loss to Mtn. View. The next year he led us in tackling practice during half-time of our last varsity game for failure to stop the Bolivar running backs.

He drove the Cabool football player wannabe’s unmercifully each August. He wanted his players in top physical shape so they could play the entire game going both ways – on offense and defense. We country boys had never seen a crab, but we quickly learned to imitate their movement at full speed going left, right and forward.

By the second week of two-a-day August practices, most of us had at least considered giving up football to get some relief from this fanatical coach. We stuck it out because he inspired us - although his “inspiration” really meant “perspiration”. We tried to please him because of his passion, his belief in us and his sincere desire for the best in our lives.

Coach Billy Cooper of Canton, Mississippi, played football at “Old Miss” and came to Cabool right after his graduation there. He cared deeply for his ball players. He helped arrange and sometimes provided rides for farm boys needing transportation to practice. Richard (T-Bone) Taylor took the long way home to give me a ride. With encouragement from Coach Cooper, Garry Brandt, played in the first football game he ever saw and went on to receive, and maintain, a full four year college scholarship.

After my Sophomore year four All Conference football players and several other fine players graduated from our school. At the end of this season, Coach Cooper started Cabool’s first weight training program. It prepared JV players for Varsity play in the fall. A fine Cabool leader, Dennis Cox, was our Weight Training Coach. Bruce Dawson and Burl Wood, were transformed by this program. It made a real difference for all of us.

Coach Cooper was not shy in pointing out errors in football games and practice. He regularly challenged us to do better and encouraged us by praising things we did well. His praise of my tackling skills made me try even harder to not let him down. He found similar ways to challenge and encourage each player. With Coach Cooper’s passion for the game and his belief in what we could accomplish, we did our best to do all that he asked of us.

Late in my Junior season, we played Salem. Salem is a much bigger town and had a bigger team, but defeating them would assure us of a tie for the conference championship. Before this game Coach challenged us: I can still hear him saying, “Do not let the Salem Tigers score on you!” The game was never in question and we won with a two or three touchdown margin. But at the end of the game we all moped off the field because Salem had scored six points on us. Pleasing Coach Cooper meant more to us that being South Central Missouri Champions!

After our Junior year Coach Cooper returned to his hometown of Canton, Mississippi, where he continued to excel in coaching, school administration and politics. During my Senior year, under a different Coach, we were again conference champions because of the confidence and fundamentals instilled by Coach Cooper. It should be noted that when we played Bolivar (where we had half-time tackling practice the prior year) we beat them by several touchdowns – we remembered Coach Cooper’s final training episode.

Passion, shown by the example of a caring and dynamic person can be a powerful and contagious thing. Those who played football in Cabool’s classes of 1959, ’60, ’61 and ’62 were given great football seasons, life long friendships and higher expectations for our lives as a gift from Coach Billy Cooper.

7/1/2007