James ‘Jim’ Paul Cooper (’48), Odessa :: He was a World War II veteran who transferred to North Texas on a football scholarship and was named All-Lone Star Conference and Honorable Mention Little All-American. He was recruited by several professional football teams and played for the Brooklyn Dodgers for a season before pursuing a teaching and coaching career from 1949 to 1985. He coached and taught in Odessa, then in Anchorage and Amarillo before returning to the Odessa school system, where he taught and supervised the driver’s education program from 1967 to 1985. In 1967, a professional football team in Odessa, the Comets, and then the West Texas Rufneks, offered him the defensive coaching job. Memorials may be made in his name to the UNT football program.
James ‘Jim’ Paul Cooper (’48), Odessa :: He was a World War II veteran who transferred to North Texas on a football scholarship and was named All-Lone Star Conference and Honorable Mention Little All-American. He was recruited by several professional football teams and played for the Brooklyn Dodgers for a season before pursuing a teaching and coaching career from 1949 to 1985. He coached and taught in Odessa, then in Anchorage and Amarillo before returning to the Odessa school system, where he taught and supervised the driver’s education program from 1967 to 1985. In 1967, a professional football team in Odessa, the Comets, and then the West Texas Rufneks, offered him the defensive coaching job. Memorials may be made in his name to the UNT football program.
