Coach carries on namesake’s tradition of sacrifice

Before he began winning football games and influencing lives as a football coach at Canyon Springs High School, Hernandez James "Hunkie" Cooper was arguably the best all-around football player in UNLV history. He played six positions: quarterback, running back, wide receiver, punt returner, kickoff returner and special teams "gunner."

And he excelled.

If Keon Clark was the Rebels' "black Bob Cousy," as the 7-foot beanpole once famously said about his basketball passing ability, then Hunkie Cooper was the African-American Gordie Lockbaum, another Holy Cross icon renowned for his versatility.

In his first game after leading Navarro College of Texas to the 1989 national junior college championship, Cooper scored four touchdowns against Southwest Missouri State. That would be as good as it got, mostly because he played for Jim Strong, who was not as good as it got in dealing with players and assistant coaches.

Were it not for Kurt Warner, Cooper also might be remembered as the best player in Arena Football League history. He was named league Most Valuable Player once and Ironman of the Year twice for the Arizona Rattlers.

I recall driving down Camelback Avenue in Phoenix after a Cactus League game and seeing Cooper's picture on the side of a bus. In the Valley of the Sun, he was more popular than air conditioning and Barry Goldwater.

But a lot of people don't know the back story about Cooper, about how his dad, James, became one of the first black buck sergeants in the military and fought in three wars. They don't know that James Cooper died when Hunkie was 14, leaving Hunkie's mom, Mae Ester, to raise eight children by herself on a $13,500 annual salary she earned for changing sheets and affixing paper bands to toilet seats at the Best Western in Palestine, Texas.

They might know that Cooper acquired his nickname from a sibling, who, upon noting her little brother's squat frame, started calling him "Hunkie."

They probably do not know the genesis of his unusual first name, for not even Hunkie knows all the details.

Hernandez was the surname of his father's best pal in the military.

James Cooper and this guy, Hernandez, had made a pact: If one should be killed in Vietnam, the other would name a son for the one who did not come home.

James Cooper died of heart disease and visions of Huey helicopters before Hunkie could ask about his dad's best friend, this special man who did not come home.

And then when he was older and all of this mattered, Hunkie had his own son to raise, and that mattered a little more.

"It's something that I've contemplated for a long time," Cooper, 43, said Wednesday. "But being the age my father would have been now (86), and not even knowing his first name, how could you trace something like that?"

So he has chosen instead to honor the memory of his father's friend -- and that of his father, too -- by living right and living strong and influencing the lives of others.

It's all Cooper talks about.

Cooper and the Pioneers were gearing up for their first-round playoff game Friday against Basic, a week before the Nov. 11 Veterans Day holiday. We spoke for more than an hour, and football came up only in passing, when Cooper pulled out his phone to show a picture of his son, A.J., a sophomore safety for the Pioneers, and when I congratulated him for unseating Las Vegas High as Northeast Division champs on a gutsy 2-point conversion on the last play of the game.

Let the record show that Hunkie Cooper plays to win, not to tie. On and off the field.

His school conjures an image of one of those academies in the ritzy suburbs, of gated communities and executive golf courses and manicured lawns and three-car garages. In reality, Canyon Springs High is surrounded by truck stops and industrial parks and processing plants, as hardscrabble as the backgrounds of the kids who attend school there.

"These are kids that when they hear a gunshot, they run to it," Cooper said. "But take them to Lake Mead, let them hear a coyote howl or a fish turn over in the water, and they're in the tent with you.

"Eighty percent of these kids come from single-family homes. They need to be directed and redirected. But they are talented beyond belief. All they want is for somebody to give them a chance.

"I'm gonna sacrifice to see that they get it."

Wednesday was a fine example. After spending the day in the Communities in Schools laboratory -- his office -- teaching kids computer skills and life skills, Cooper went to football practice. After practice, he planned to have dinner at home before leaving for his third job at Encore Beach Club, where he is a security manager.

Cooper said he would get home around 4 a.m., and be back on campus at 7:30.

I told him this guy Hernandez, this special man for whom he is named, would be proud of his work ethic and so much more.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@review journal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.