Trailblazing Minneapolis soccer star honored for contributions to women’s sports
As part of Minnesota's celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Wednesday, University of St. Thomas athletics administrator Amy Cooper received the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award. The award recognizes women who have overcome physical challenges in their athletic endeavors and created pathways for others.
Courtesy of Amy Cooper
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People gathered Wednesday at the Minnesota History Center to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Similar events across the country recognized girls and women’s achievements in sports and promote equality.
Among the honorees in Minnesota is Washburn High School alumnus Amy Cooper. Her list of accolades is long, beginning with her time as a Minneapolis high school athlete. She exceled in swimming, track, basketball and soccer.
Then, at Howard University, she became the first soccer player for a Historically Black College and University to earn all-conference honors. She has gone on to create opportunities for other women and women of color as a coach and administrator.
Today Amy Cooper works as senior associate athletic director for administration at the University of St. Thomas. She is this year’s recipient of the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award, which honors women who have overcome physical challenges in their pursuit of sports and created a path for others. She joined MPR News host Nina Moini to share her story.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Right now, at the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul, people are gathered to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Similar events are happening across the country to recognize girls' and women's achievements in sports, and promote equality. Among the people being honored in Minnesota today is Washburn High School alum Amy Cooper.
Her list of accolades is long, starting with her time as a Minneapolis high school athlete in swimming, track, basketball, and soccer. Then, at Howard University, she became the first soccer player for a historically Black college and university to earn all conference honors, and she's gone on to create opportunities for other athletes as a coach and administrator. Amy Cooper is now Senior Associate Athletic Director for Administration at the University of Saint Thomas, and she's this year's recipient of the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award, which honors women who have overcome physical challenges in their pursuit of sports and created a path for others. Welcome to the program, Amy.
AMY COOPER: Thank you. Glad to be here.
NINA MOINI: Well, it is quite a life that you've lived and quite an athlete that you are. Congratulations. How does this honor feel?
AMY COOPER: It feels great, to be honest. It's something I don't think about often, so it's a little weird to be honored for perseverance. But it feels good to be recognized. And I think more than anything, it's important for young girls to see themselves in women working in sports and athletics. And so hopefully I can represent for those that look like me.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, you probably don't think day to day, I'm paving a path for others. You're just kind of going about your life. But when you hear it kind of laid out that way that we did in the intro, you can see that you've had such a huge impact on so many people. I'm curious what drew you to athletics as a young person.
AMY COOPER: I was blessed that my parents just put me in sports right away. They recognized how much I loved to run, and I excelled early on in athletics. So I think for me, that was somewhere that I was comfortable, that I felt like I wasn't judged for what I looked like or how I talked.
And I was understood because I was an athlete, I was working hard and I was successful. And so for me, sports has always just come easy. Other things in life haven't quite come as easy.
And so it just became me. And anybody who knew me back in the day would know that Amy, she plays every sport. She's out there. She's athletic. And so it gave me the confidence that I needed at that time to push through life.
NINA MOINI: And so it was probably natural that it turned into a career for you.
AMY COOPER: Yes. Actually, I was an international business major in college because I took Japanese, and everyone told me to do that. And then my junior year, after an internship, I realized-- I was like, OK, business is not for me. I need to work in sports. And it's funny, because I called my mom and told her that I thought I wanted to be a physical education teacher and not go into business, and she said, oh yeah, I was just waiting for you to figure that out.
NINA MOINI: Aw, Mom knew. I love that.
AMY COOPER: Yeah. And at the time, to be honest, I didn't see myself working in college athletics because I didn't really see a lot of representation there. My college coach was a part-time coach, and so it didn't seem feasible for me to have a career in college athletics at that time. But what opened that up for me was a grad assistantship down at Prairie View A&M University. I'd already been coaching youth teams in Minneapolis, Minneapolis United, Westside Soccer Club, and so when I got the opportunity to start up a program in the first HBCU women's soccer conference, those two years there, I knew right away that I wanted to be a collegiate coach. I wasn't thinking about administration yet, but I knew I wanted to be a soccer coach.
NINA MOINI: And so as a coach and an administrator, you really are helping to create and support the next generation of women athletes. I'm wondering, what are you proudest of or what do you love the most about being in that coach role?
AMY COOPER: What I love the most is the interaction with student athletes. When you move out of the coaching role into administration, sometimes you don't get that same interaction anymore. However, for me, I have four teams here that I'm a sport administrator for, so I try to spend time at their practices. I go to their games, and I'm also the advisor for our Black student-athlete affinity group. And those touchpoints give me that contact with student-athletes because I think, ultimately, we all want a purpose and we want to feel like we're making a difference.
And while, here I'm over our compliance and our budget, sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm making a difference there. But when you get those everyday one v. one interactions with student athletes, you see them grow from freshman year through their senior year on to get married and then the rest of life. And when they tell you that you meant something to them and you helped them become the woman they are today, to me, that's everything. That's my purpose.
NINA MOINI: And there's so many ways to lift people up, to your point, whether you're working behind the scenes on their behalf or working with them, and you're award, this Wilma Rudolph Award, honors people who have persevered through physical challenges to continue creating opportunities for other girls and women and women of color in sports. Can you talk about how some of the physical limitations that you've been through in life have impacted you, and how you've adapted and tried to overcome these challenges?
AMY COOPER: It's funny. When I was younger, I'll say pre-college, I didn't get hurt. I hadn't had any injuries. I literally thought I was invincible.
I had my first major injury in college, where I tore my meniscus in three places. And unfortunately, I did play on it a little longer than I should have. But what I learned while playing with an injured knee was how to adapt my game. I'd always been the quickest on the field, but I wasn't anymore, and so I had to focus on my passing, my communication. I had to be able to hold the ball without dribbling.
And then later in life, when I was in graduate school at Prairie View A&M is when I got diagnosed with lupus. It was confusing at the time because I thought I was invincible, so I didn't quite understand how this could happen. But again, I thought back to my time when I played, and I had to just recalibrate and figure out now, OK, I have lupus, that's fine. How can I be the person and do the things that I want to do with this disability?
And at the same time, my knees were failing. I'd had a couple more knee surgeries, and so it took a while for me to actually, I guess, admit to myself that I had physical limitations and that I had to listen to my body because I'd never had to listen to my body before because I could just keep going. And so I learned to slow down, to make sure that I took care of myself and my body so that when I was working, when I was interacting with friends and family, that I could be at my best.
And so it just took some readjusting and recalibrating. As I went on, I unfortunately got Compartment Leg Syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome. And again, it was just-- I was kind of in disbelief because I just never thought that would happen to me. But again, it's nothing new. My whole life I've pushed past the boundaries, and I have been authentic and just been me, and that's what I continue to do.
NINA MOINI: And having seen the twists and turns of life, I just want to ask before we let you go, what you would tell young women athletes, young girl athletes, who you work with or others that you haven't met about just how to persevere.
AMY COOPER: I would say, have confidence in yourself and know that you can do anything that you set your mind to. Don't let anybody tell you what your limitations are. You need to figure out your own limitations, and you need to work to push past those, just like you do every day on the field, on the court. You're going to use what you've learned in athletics and in sports to push you forward through the rest of your life.
NINA MOINI: Amy, thank you so much. That's great advice. And congratulations again on this honor.
AMY COOPER: Thank you so much.
NINA MOINI: Amy Cooper is Senior Associate Athletic Director for Administration at the University of Saint Thomas. She is receiving the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award from National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Minnesota.
Her list of accolades is long, starting with her time as a Minneapolis high school athlete in swimming, track, basketball, and soccer. Then, at Howard University, she became the first soccer player for a historically Black college and university to earn all conference honors, and she's gone on to create opportunities for other athletes as a coach and administrator. Amy Cooper is now Senior Associate Athletic Director for Administration at the University of Saint Thomas, and she's this year's recipient of the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award, which honors women who have overcome physical challenges in their pursuit of sports and created a path for others. Welcome to the program, Amy.
AMY COOPER: Thank you. Glad to be here.
NINA MOINI: Well, it is quite a life that you've lived and quite an athlete that you are. Congratulations. How does this honor feel?
AMY COOPER: It feels great, to be honest. It's something I don't think about often, so it's a little weird to be honored for perseverance. But it feels good to be recognized. And I think more than anything, it's important for young girls to see themselves in women working in sports and athletics. And so hopefully I can represent for those that look like me.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, you probably don't think day to day, I'm paving a path for others. You're just kind of going about your life. But when you hear it kind of laid out that way that we did in the intro, you can see that you've had such a huge impact on so many people. I'm curious what drew you to athletics as a young person.
AMY COOPER: I was blessed that my parents just put me in sports right away. They recognized how much I loved to run, and I excelled early on in athletics. So I think for me, that was somewhere that I was comfortable, that I felt like I wasn't judged for what I looked like or how I talked.
And I was understood because I was an athlete, I was working hard and I was successful. And so for me, sports has always just come easy. Other things in life haven't quite come as easy.
And so it just became me. And anybody who knew me back in the day would know that Amy, she plays every sport. She's out there. She's athletic. And so it gave me the confidence that I needed at that time to push through life.
NINA MOINI: And so it was probably natural that it turned into a career for you.
AMY COOPER: Yes. Actually, I was an international business major in college because I took Japanese, and everyone told me to do that. And then my junior year, after an internship, I realized-- I was like, OK, business is not for me. I need to work in sports. And it's funny, because I called my mom and told her that I thought I wanted to be a physical education teacher and not go into business, and she said, oh yeah, I was just waiting for you to figure that out.
NINA MOINI: Aw, Mom knew. I love that.
AMY COOPER: Yeah. And at the time, to be honest, I didn't see myself working in college athletics because I didn't really see a lot of representation there. My college coach was a part-time coach, and so it didn't seem feasible for me to have a career in college athletics at that time. But what opened that up for me was a grad assistantship down at Prairie View A&M University. I'd already been coaching youth teams in Minneapolis, Minneapolis United, Westside Soccer Club, and so when I got the opportunity to start up a program in the first HBCU women's soccer conference, those two years there, I knew right away that I wanted to be a collegiate coach. I wasn't thinking about administration yet, but I knew I wanted to be a soccer coach.
NINA MOINI: And so as a coach and an administrator, you really are helping to create and support the next generation of women athletes. I'm wondering, what are you proudest of or what do you love the most about being in that coach role?
AMY COOPER: What I love the most is the interaction with student athletes. When you move out of the coaching role into administration, sometimes you don't get that same interaction anymore. However, for me, I have four teams here that I'm a sport administrator for, so I try to spend time at their practices. I go to their games, and I'm also the advisor for our Black student-athlete affinity group. And those touchpoints give me that contact with student-athletes because I think, ultimately, we all want a purpose and we want to feel like we're making a difference.
And while, here I'm over our compliance and our budget, sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm making a difference there. But when you get those everyday one v. one interactions with student athletes, you see them grow from freshman year through their senior year on to get married and then the rest of life. And when they tell you that you meant something to them and you helped them become the woman they are today, to me, that's everything. That's my purpose.
NINA MOINI: And there's so many ways to lift people up, to your point, whether you're working behind the scenes on their behalf or working with them, and you're award, this Wilma Rudolph Award, honors people who have persevered through physical challenges to continue creating opportunities for other girls and women and women of color in sports. Can you talk about how some of the physical limitations that you've been through in life have impacted you, and how you've adapted and tried to overcome these challenges?
AMY COOPER: It's funny. When I was younger, I'll say pre-college, I didn't get hurt. I hadn't had any injuries. I literally thought I was invincible.
I had my first major injury in college, where I tore my meniscus in three places. And unfortunately, I did play on it a little longer than I should have. But what I learned while playing with an injured knee was how to adapt my game. I'd always been the quickest on the field, but I wasn't anymore, and so I had to focus on my passing, my communication. I had to be able to hold the ball without dribbling.
And then later in life, when I was in graduate school at Prairie View A&M is when I got diagnosed with lupus. It was confusing at the time because I thought I was invincible, so I didn't quite understand how this could happen. But again, I thought back to my time when I played, and I had to just recalibrate and figure out now, OK, I have lupus, that's fine. How can I be the person and do the things that I want to do with this disability?
And at the same time, my knees were failing. I'd had a couple more knee surgeries, and so it took a while for me to actually, I guess, admit to myself that I had physical limitations and that I had to listen to my body because I'd never had to listen to my body before because I could just keep going. And so I learned to slow down, to make sure that I took care of myself and my body so that when I was working, when I was interacting with friends and family, that I could be at my best.
And so it just took some readjusting and recalibrating. As I went on, I unfortunately got Compartment Leg Syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome. And again, it was just-- I was kind of in disbelief because I just never thought that would happen to me. But again, it's nothing new. My whole life I've pushed past the boundaries, and I have been authentic and just been me, and that's what I continue to do.
NINA MOINI: And having seen the twists and turns of life, I just want to ask before we let you go, what you would tell young women athletes, young girl athletes, who you work with or others that you haven't met about just how to persevere.
AMY COOPER: I would say, have confidence in yourself and know that you can do anything that you set your mind to. Don't let anybody tell you what your limitations are. You need to figure out your own limitations, and you need to work to push past those, just like you do every day on the field, on the court. You're going to use what you've learned in athletics and in sports to push you forward through the rest of your life.
NINA MOINI: Amy, thank you so much. That's great advice. And congratulations again on this honor.
AMY COOPER: Thank you so much.
NINA MOINI: Amy Cooper is Senior Associate Athletic Director for Administration at the University of Saint Thomas. She is receiving the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award from National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Minnesota.
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