COWBOY JOY
Walk-on Cooper has become toast of OSU locker room
STILLWATER — Like most around the state on a Friday night, Madill High School fans and players gathered on t he football field. Win or lose, they had to rehash key moments and take photos.
In the background, a scrawny kid was running up and down the field or stadium stairs without his shoulder pads.
Micah Cooper wasn't playing as a sophomore, but he wasn't taking a night off.
“That was ol' Coop,” Milton Cooper, the former Madill coach and Micah's uncle, said with a hearty laugh.
No longer justin the background, Micah is the toast of Oklahoma State's football team and the small community east of Ardmore.
He's made stops at Division I I Henderson State and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M Junior College. But that winding journey to Stillwater as a walkon running back was worth it. Micah is the biggest surprise two weeks into the season as a key part of OSU's backfield.
“That kid works his a** off,” OSU quarterback Dru Brown
said. “He's got the odds stacked against him. The fact that he's here just shows the type of dude he is and the work that he puts in. I'm not trying to be cliche, but I really like to see that kind of stuff.”
Seven years ago, Micah moved from California to Madill with little prospects of being a football star.
He was just 5- foot -3 and 103 pounds. He didn't shy from football, and his father swore that he would be a good football player one day. Size just isn't teachable.
“A little pencil-neck kid,” Milton said with another chuckle.
Mic ah did have the desire, though.
He was known to be the first in and last out of the weight room. He carried gallon jugs of water to class along with a muscle roller. His workout regimen led to cr amps. In class, he would use the roller and chug the water.
His running workouts even became part of his small-town legend.
Others wore shoes. Not Micah.
Most chalked it up to life in California, but as a child he entered a track program and was taught to run without shoes. His coach believed ankle muscles develop faster without shoes.
Micah fully bought into that theory.
“He even said tome that he wished he could play football without shoes on ,” said Gary Cooper, Micah's father. “He swears that he is 10 seconds faster without his shoes on.”
As senior, Micah grew to 6-0 and 190 pounds. In less than four years, he sprouted 9 inches and added nearly 90 pounds.
Small colleges took notice as he rushed for 1,164 yards and eight touchdowns his senior
year. He played nine games as a freshman at Henderson State, but was redshirted the next year. He transferred to NEO and saw limited action. But he still found a way to OSU.
“He just really felt like he wanted to try to see if he could make it,” said Noriko Cooper, Micah's mom.
Mic ah spent each day of the offseason in OSU' s weight room. Agility drills. Band workouts. Balance workouts. Weights. He never stopped.
Gage Gun dy, the youngest son of OSU coach Mike Gun dy, noticed. He even told his dad, but he had no idea who Micah even was. By fall camp, he pointed Micah out to his father. Mike had already been impressed.
“It's pretty evident that he wants to be a college football player, and he's going to get the ball ,” Mike Gundy said.
That made Saturday night especially rewarding.
Linebacker Philip Redwine-Bryant intercepted a pass in the third quarter and raced to the corner of the end zone. He dove and stretched out the football. He instantly knew he was a yard short.
For a former walk-on linebacker, that was a big moment. It just wasn't his moment.
The next play belonged to Micah.
A 1- yard touchdown run might not seem like much late in Saturday's 56-14 blow out of McNeese State to many. But seeing No. 26 cross the goal line meant so much to OSU.
“I was s o happy f or him,” Redwine- Bryant said. “He deserved that. He really did. And there's no other guy I would want to score for me, because he worked for that.”