RACE FOR COOP
CoopStrong Race supports scholarships, research for ALS
Nelson Cooper always worked to help students in East Carolina University’s Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies to succeed. Now former students, colleagues, friends and family will celebrate his life and legacy at the first CoopStrong Race on March 24.
The Cooper family, from left to right, Nelson, Mary Ann, Jefferson and Bailey. (Contributed photo)
It’s fitting that the 4-mile run and ruck and 1.5-mile support walk will be held on ECU’s Admitted Student Day. It’s also Cooper’s birthday; he would have been 51. Cooper died on May 18, 2017, after a brave fight with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which affects the nervous system and weakens muscles and physical abilities.
The race is the first fundraiser for the newly founded CoopStrong nonprofit organization, which honors Cooper’s legacy by providing ECU student scholarships, supporting research and helping local families living with ALS.
“He made such an impact on the people he knew and was so open with his journey of being diagnosed and living with ALS. His relationships just continued to grow,” said Nelson’s wife, Mary Ann Cooper. “We wanted to do something to carry on the work that he started.”
The ECU connection runs deep for the Coopers, who were family friends with the late ECU baseball coach Keith LeClair, who had ALS. Their kids went to the same preschool and their families attended Oakmont Baptist Church. “It helped us to know what ALS is,” Mary Ann Cooper said. “Then to face it ourselves, it was so unexpected. The knowledge we had helped prepare us, and if there is anything that we can do to help people facing that now and to find a cure, we want to do that.”
Daughter Bailey is a junior at ECU and she and her brother, Jefferson, recently threw out the first pitch for the 15th annual LeClair Classic.
ECU baseball coach Cliff Godwin fist bumps Nelson Cooper. (Photo by Savanah Elkins)
The race will start at 9 a.m. at Branches, the medical clinic and youth building where Nelson and Mary Ann Cooper volunteered with Oakmont teenagers and college students, and will continue through the Tucker neighborhood. Charlie Justice, a longtime runner, coach, ECU staff member and good friend of the Coopers, designed the course.
Jane Jarrett, instructor for ECU’s recreation and event programming classes in the College of Health and Human Performance, was one of Cooper’s students. “Coop was my professor, mentor and friend,” she said. “I’m able to keep his memory alive by sharing the lessons he taught me with my students.”
Nine of Jarrett’s ECU students have worked on planning and implementing the race. “This event is a service learning opportunity for the students,” Jarrett said. “This is where they are able to apply their knowledge of recreation and event programming into actions and be fully engaged with their learning.”
Student Luke Burch has been focused on course logistics and risk management. Under Jarrett’s and Justice’s guidance, he said he has learned more about organizing and the amount of time required to produce a successful race.
“We have learned about every aspect of risk management which includes more than just the participants’ safety,” Burch said. “I have never helped organize an event like this before and have only participated in running in a 3K once. I have learned a lot so far about Dr. Cooper and who he was as a person and how much the community loved him and his family.”
Michaela Langley has been working on sponsorships and marketing the event, which has become more than a class project after learning about ALS, she said. “There isn’t a cure and the cost can be extreme,” she said. “Dr. Cooper was invested in the lives of his students and those that didn’t even have his class and because of this investment I want to help make this event the best that it can be so I can say I was a part of something that makes a difference in people’s lives no matter if my part is big or small.”
Offering time and service to students is an important lesson that Jarrett learned from Nelson Cooper. “I could see how much that meant to the students and I had such a good role model to follow for my own teaching style,” Jarrett said. “Even when he was sick, he would still ask ‘what can I do to help?’”
It’s not too late to sign up to run, walk or ruck by March 22 at http://www.runsignup.com/coopstrong. There is a discount for youth, high school and college students.
The F3 ENC workout group that Nelson Cooper helped start in Greenville in a moment of prayer. (Contributed photo)