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Cooperwood defines hustle for WSU hoops

Senior pushed himself hard in the offseason and continues to improve.

“This offseason, I said nobody is going to be in better condition,” said WSU senior Cory Cooperwood. “I pushed myself harder. It’s a lot different (in college) when everybody’s bigger, faster, stronger. I know now what to expect.”

Staff photo by Teesha McClam “This offseason, I said nobody is going to be in better condition,” said WSU senior Cory Cooperwood. “I pushed myself harder. It’s a lot different (in college) when everybody’s bigger, faster, stronger. I know now what to expect.”

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By Marc Katz, Staff Writer 3:29 AM Thursday, November 12, 2009

FAIRBORN — At home in tiny Kensett, Ark., where the malls are miles away and kids had their choice of playing outside or watching television, Cory Cooperwood listened to his family.

“I listened to old stories from my uncles and father about how hard they used to work,” said Cooperwood, a senior on the Wright State basketball team that begins its season Friday, Nov. 13, at Washington. “I wanted to be like them. I didn’t want to be cool. They say younger people want to be cool and act nonchalant.”

There is not a coach in the country that does not exhort his players to try harder. Wright State coach Brad Brownell sometimes has to tell Cooperwood to back off.

“He plays so hard, sometimes you have to take him out after only a few minutes to give him a rest,” Brownell said.

As hard as Cooperwood played last season, he felt he had to play even harder after spending two years at a junior college.

“I’ve always played like that,” Cooperwood said. “This offseason, I said nobody is going to be in better condition. I pushed myself harder. It’s a lot different (in college) when everybody’s bigger, faster, stronger. I know now what to expect.”

Cooperwood was second on the Raiders in scoring last season (9.5 points per game) and first in rebounding (5.4). Listed at 6-foot-7, he probably is an inch or two short of that mark, meaning he’s usually playing against bigger men.

He played basketball in Kensett because he felt he had limited choices.

“There isn’t much to do back home but criminal activity or play basketball,” Cooperwood said with a wink. He said he sort of combined the two.

“It was too hot to play during the day so we’d go from nine to 12 or 12:30 at night, when we’d break into the Kensett middle school,” he said. “There was a window you could push in and we sent my friend’s sister in there and she ran around and opened the door.”

It was a door Wright State is glad he walked through.

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