FITCH GRAD ARIELLE COOPER AND MOM RENEE KHOURY
If Arielle Cooper is ever looking for low-carb wraps, she knows who she can get to look for them at the grocery store: her mom, Renee Khoury. Likewise, Khoury has a few occasional suggestions for Cooper. "She has to Google call me every day while I'm working and tell me what rescue dogs I should be adopting, articles on health things I should be doing, how to build my 401K the right way," Cooper said with a laugh. There's so much the 29-year-old Cooper, the 2009 Fitch High School graduate and former All-America third baseman for the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team, has learned from her mom. Khoury, a former 1,000-point scorer for the Fitch girls' basketball team and all-state shortstop in softball, was a 2017 inductee into the school's athletic hall of fame. But Cooper's admiration for her is deeper than that. "I have to give her credit. She is one of the best people I know with the work ethic," Cooper said. "She's taken no days off ever since I was born. She does medical billing for three doctors and she waitresses on the weekends. Seven days a week. “It shows that if you want things, you have to work for them." Maybe that's where Cooper got her penchant for excellence. As a senior at Fitch, she helped lift the Falcons to the Class LL state softball championship. At
Eastern, Cooper put together a stretch in which she hit safely in 63 of 64 games over two seasons and in her senior year she batted .538 with 16 home runs, 43 RBI and 61 runs scored to earn first team All-America honors.
She added to her career as the head coach of the Fitch softball team, leading the program to a 74-8 record in three seasons, including the 2014 and 2016 state championships.
Cooper is currently an assistant softball coach at the Coast Guard Academy and resides in Groton. She received her master's degree in applied behavior analysis and works as a private special education teacher at The Light House in Niantic.
— Vickie Fulkerson