Before Edgar Cooper began to mold young minds at Watson Chapel School District’s Edgewood Elementary, he was setting state track and field records at Emerson High School, near Magnolia. Then, he went a little farther south and earned all-America status as a member of Northwestern State University’s 4×100-meter relay team.
The “Emerson Flash,” as Cooper was known, will soon be known as a hall-of-famer. His college alma mater in Natchitoches, La., will induct him and 15 other athletes into the N-Club Hall of Fame on Oct. 26, the day of Northwestern State’s homecoming.
Cooper attended Northwestern State on a football scholarship after graduation from Emerson in 1984. His high school did not have a football team, but a coach reached out to him after seeing him win two sprints at a meet in Magnolia.
“I said, ‘Coach, you know we don’t have a football team.’ He said, ‘I know that. Have you ever heard of Mark Duper (former Miami Dolphins receiver and NSU alumnus)? … He never played football until he got to college. We had Super Duper, and now we’ll have Super Cooper.’ That hooked me.”
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Cooper played on Northwestern’s football team for two seasons but left after being convinced to focus on his track and field career.
On the track, the Demons had a sprinting sensation who set Arkansas state meet records in the 100 and 200 meters in 1984. Converted to fully automated times, Cooper ran 11.14 and 22.24 in the respective races, according to an online list of records. Cooper said he had enough points to win his third team state championship as a senior.
He delivered on the track at Northwestern State, earning all-conference accolades each year and leading the Demons to the Division II Gulf Star Conference championship in 1985 and Division I Southland Conference title in 1987. A two-year team captain, Cooper ran the third leg on a 4×100 team that took eighth in the 1987 NCAA championship meet but earned all-America honors from the NCAA Division I Track and Field Coaches Association. Al Edwards, Kennedy Whitt and Chester Davis were the other members of the relay team.
During a regular-season meet in Houston, Cooper shared the same track with Carl Lewis, then America’s fastest man, for a 100-meter sprint. “I wasn’t last, but I was well behind him,” Cooper described.
Chris Maggio, former Northwestern State president, was a teammate of Cooper’s.
“His accolades spoke for himself. He was a better person than he was an athlete, and that’s not saying he wasn’t a good athlete. He was a phenomenal athlete,” Maggio said. “He was the teammate you wanted to be around, the type of athletes others looked up to.”
Maggio, a former NSU women’s track head coach, said a successful relay team takes more than just four fast guys, but also chemistry.
“But Coop was always the one who could keep the guys together,” Maggio recalled. “He would be the leader. Sometimes he wasn’t the fastest of the four, but he was the consistent one.”
Cooper graduated from Northwestern State in 1989 and began his education career as a substitute teacher in Shreveport, delivering Domino’s pizzas on the side. He became a basketball coach the following year in the Mississippi River town of Waterproof, La., reaching the state semifinals in his first season and the state championship game three years later.
After a stop near Baton Rouge, Cooper returned to south Arkansas and was hired by then-Superintendent Gary Kees in the Stephens School District as a basketball coach before moving on to Camden Fairview, where he was girls basketball coach and then elementary dean of students. He earned master’s and specialist degrees from Henderson State University.
Cooper came to Watson Chapel in 2019 as high school assistant principal, then moved to L.L. Owen Elementary before taking over as principal at Edgewood last August. A father of four and grandfather of nine, Cooper’s athletic and coaching background has helped him in his present charge of kindergartners and first graders.
“With athletics, they come to you not knowing how to make a layup, how to put your pads on, how to block, different things of that nature,” he said. “We get the same thing academically. We get kids who are learning how to read.”
Literacy is a big focus in Watson Chapel, which spent all of last school year focusing on growth in test scores. Cooper noticed many high school students were reading below grade level because they didn’t have a foundation for success in the lower levels.
“I feel this is an opportunity for me to build a foundation for the students under my watch so that problem won’t exist when they get to be at the secondary level,” Cooper said.
A new school year will begin in Watson Chapel on Monday, when the newest Wildcats get to hang with Mr. Cooper and learn under his charge, a charge Maggio remembers from their track days.
“I’m glad he’s using those leadership skills in education to be a mentor to all students,” Maggio said.
Edgar Cooper works inside his office at Edgewood Elementary School in the Watson Chapel School District. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)
Edgar Cooper in college (Northwestern State University)