Third in a series

Re “Cooper’s Coach Was Her Father. Any Discomfort There?”

[img]2850|right|Lisa Cooper||no_popup[/img]Lisa Cooper, closing out her first month as interim principal of Culver City High School, said her father and coach made her first career an easy choice.

“My father inspired me to go into coaching,” said Ms. Cooper, a star player herself who won four consecutive state championships at Bishop Montgomery High School, Torrance. “What he taught me (at Westchester High) was that there is so much more than x’s and o’s that the kids take away from you.”

“I am talking about life skills — working hard, teamwork, determination, loving the sport, being able to take it to another level.  You learn what it means to work hard for your goals.

“Of course wins and trophies are all good,” Ms. Cooper said in her office, just off the main lobby of the high school. “I always have felt, though, that the lessons I just mentioned were the most rewarding part.

“I would see that with my father when players would come back and say to him, ‘Look what I am doing now.’ The fact they would even come back and tell him all about themselves really blew me away. Now I see that as I have had players come back.”

Did he become, did you become, personally involved in the lives of your players?

“Oh, yes, and that was something my father taught me, too. You can’t be only concerned about your players when they are on the basketball court. He did teach me that, and those were lessons I applied because I did work at Bishop when I coached there. I was a counselor. He taught me that you have to be that role model, that mentor.

“You have to build relationships,” Ms. Cooper said, “letting them know you care for them. That makes a big difference.”

(To be continued)