Cooper Is Cleaning Up at Arizona State

Holiday Bowl-- not Pasadena--here they come, and, yet, things are rosy for the Arizona State football players.

Oh, they know how much rosier things might have been. USC beat UCLA, which meant the Sun Devils only had to tie Arizona to go to the Rose Bowl. But they lost, so here they are.

But nobody lost his temper back in Tempe. First-year Coach John Cooper attended a booster luncheon the other day, his first since the Arizona upset, and received a standing ovation.

“I see you’ve forgotten about the U of A game,” he said.

“Oh no we haven’t!” they shouted back.

But they forgave, a trendy thing to do these days at ASU, where they are trying to build a clean program after a trying time on NCAA probation.

A clean program? At ASU, the school that’s heard, but never seen?

Yes.

“Well, I’m a no-nonsense type person,” Cooper said, “and when they (ASU administrators) were describing the kind of program they wanted, well, it was the same things I wanted in a program.”

ASU begins with John Cooper.

So with one giant step--hiring John Cooper--they hope to improve mankind, at least as it exists in the Arizona State athletic department.

“I got into coaching to help young people,” Cooper said. “We’re trying to mold lives. If I can have an impact on kids, well, I’d be proud of that.”

In his first season at Arizona State, he has tried. Senior running back Darryl Clack fractured his fibula in game No. 2 and has not returned. But he says he’s ready to play Sunday, even though he could come back for another season if he sits out.

He had a decision to make. And he made it. He’s playing.

Boy, is Cooper mad.

“I think he’s making a very, very drastic mistake by not coming back (next season),” Cooper said.

He told this to Clack.

Clack, his palms up, said: “Maybe so, but it’s time for me to move on, to try the NFL.”

Grades also are a consideration.

“Well, grades are a problem with him,” Cooper said, “but he hasn’t been made to go to class, to go to study hall. Someone let Darryl Clack down. I’m not using anybody; I don’t want him back so we can win. But somebody just should have made him go to class, or at least influenced him to go to class. That’s what I’m trying to do now.

“You know, he said the possibility of injury was a factor in his decision (to go pro), but I said: ‘Darryl, you’ll still be getting another year of education.’ I’m telling you. We’re serious about our commitment to academics.”

Just six years ago, Arizona State tried to get players eligible by buying correspondence-school credits from Rocky Mountain College, a school that existed only in name.

John Cooper grew up in Powell, Tenn.

“I lived so far out in the country, I had to come toward town to find a place to hunt,” he said.

“Darn right I was raised in the country. I know what an honest days work is. I grew up on a small farm, picking corn, plowing with a mule. We lived off our crops. I worked my way through school bagging groceries. Shoot, we used to bale hay in the summer.

” . . . I was one of six children. My mom, well, every Monday was wash day for her. We didn’t have hot water in the house. I was 17 before we had indoor plumbing. No car. No telephone. We came up poor, but proud. I kid my players. I say: ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be poor.’

“And Sunday night, I’m going to be here in a bowl game. The country bumpkin has come a long way.”

It all started at Iowa State, where he played tailback and safety for Coach Clay Stapleton. Cooper later coached there. He went to Oregon State as an assistant to Tommy Prothro. He went to UCLA with Prothro. He went to Kansas with Pepper Rodgers. He went to Kentucky with Fran Curci.

In 1977, he became head coach at Tulsa.

Then, on to Arizona State.

“I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of,” he said. “Sometimes, I feel the people employing me are crazy. They’re paying me for this.”

“What’s his name? Cooper? I hear he runs the veer.”

So some players went to his very first news conference, to hear for themselves.

“Well,” Cooper said. “We’ll throw the ball.”

Whew, said quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst, standing in the back of the room.

The transition has been simple. He didn’t junk the whole offense. He didn’t junk the whole defense. He brought in assistants he knew. Jim Colletto, who coached with him at UCLA, came from Purdue to lead the offense. And Larry Marmie, who coached with him at Tulsa, came from Tennessee to lead the defense.

Cooper stands back and lets them do the talking during practice. Actually, Colletto does the screaming.

A young receiver, Paul Day, who dropped a touchdown pass in the Arizona game, dropped another pass in practice this week.

“You dropped a touchdown in the biggest game in school history! Do you know that! Think about it!”

It was Colletto.

Cooper just watched.

He watched his team go 8-3 this season. It was once ranked.

“One reason we weren’t ranked was because we played so many night games and the people back East weren’t able to see our scores,” Cooper said. “The other reason, and this is a trademark of John Cooper’s teams--we do not intentionally try to run up the score on people. We substitute freely. My attitude is if you practice during the week, you ought to play on Saturday.

“We had USC, 24-0, and had the ball on the 6-yard line when the game was over, and Ted Tollner shook my hand afterward and said: ‘John, I appreciate you not trying to score.’ Well, that’s the way we are.”

Colletto marvels at the man.

“John Cooper doesn’t get uptight,” he said. “He’s different during a game than any coach I’ve ever known. Five minutes before the Arizona game, it was almost as if he were lying on the beach.”

Colletto rambled on: “This will be a real solid consistent scandal-free program with John as coach. All the assistants are good guys. No used car salesmen here. We all have the same ideas. We all think the same.

“A kid better not think they’re coming to Arizona State to party. That’s a misconception they might have, but they’ll be coming to the wrong place. We’re not out to cheat on anything. We’re out to win, but to do it the way it’s supposed to be done. The knock on Arizona State is that it’s an outlaw school with poor academics.

“Well, that’s as wrong as can be.”

But the fact remains that in a recent 21-month period, there were sanctions against five ASU athletic programs.

It was time for a cool change.

On came Cooper.

Noseguard Dan Saleaumua and defensive tackle Shawn Patterson had the following conversation Thursday when asked “Do you respect this Cooper guy?”

Saleaumua: “Coach Coop? Oh yeah. These guys may complain about too much running, you know, but some guys take it all wrong. He’s doing it for us. If he didn’t care, we wouldn’t do it. But he does care. Plus, he gets along with everybody.”

Patterson: “Oh, he came in and did it without making changes, without skipping a beat. Listen. We’re in a bowl game for only the second time since 1978.”

Saleaumua: “And he’s honest. That’s John Cooper. He doesn’t lie. He plays no games. He tells you: ‘If you don’t go to class, don’t come back in the fall.’ Really, if you don’t want to study, that’s it.”

Patterson: “He won’t baby you, man.”

Saleaumua: “Here’s something. There’s this guy, a receiver named Ron Simone. He was a walk-on. And Coach Coop says he wants receivers to lay out (dive for balls over the middle). And Simone did during practice, and he paid for it, man. He got nailed by (All-America safety) David Fulcher. But you know what? Simone came over to the sideline, and Coach Coop gave him a scholarship.”

Saleaumua (again): “Just don’t get on John Cooper’s bad side.”

Patterson: “Well, the only way that happens is if you mess with him.”

Saleaumua: “Oh, he’s a good man, that John Cooper.”