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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Kinesiology department honors professor

Graduate program named after 92-year-old John Cooper

As a University of Missouri basketball player in the 1930s John Cooper invented the jump shot. As a professor, first at the University of Southern California and then at IU, Cooper helped invent the nascent science of biomechanics. \nHe's appeared on Wheaties cereal boxes for his sporting accomplishments and served as the president of academic associations for his ground-breaking research.\nAt age 92, Cooper can now add one more honor to the list. Thursday night at a reception in front of nearly 100 of his friends and family, IU's graduate kinesiology program was renamed the Dr. John M. Cooper Graduate Program in Kinesiology. \nFellow Missouri alumni and School of Health, Physical Recreation and Education Professor Phil Henson described Cooper's childhood hoop dreams growing up on a farm in Kentucky. \n"He played with a ball that didn't hold air," Henson said. "He'd warm the ball over the stove so he could get a few bounces out of it." \nHenson said Cooper and his friends had to pour car oil on their dirt basketball court to keep the dust down and that when they got the opportunity to use an indoor court, in many cases the ceiling wasn't much higher than the backboard. \nHenson said that as a player at Missouri, Cooper was often matched against taller players over whom he couldn't shoot. At the time, players shot from the chest and made free throws from between their legs. During one game, Cooper jumped to catch the ball and then shot the ball while still in the air. \n"The crowd went wild," Henson said. "The coaches benched him and told him that at the University of Missouri 'We shoot the ball with both feet on the floor.'" \nThree former players Cooper coached in the 1940s made the trip to Bloomington to pay tribute to their coach. \n"Everybody has to have a hero, and Coach John Cooper was that for us," said Rodger Meier, one Cooper's former players. \nCooper mentored Executive Associate Dean Jerry Wilkerson and Professor Betty Haven as graduate students in the 1970s.\n"He encouraged us, and he kept accepting women at a time when other places weren't accepting women," Wilkerson said.\nHaven said she thought sometimes Cooper even forgot they were women. She said once she was listening to Cooper while they walked when Cooper entered the men's room. Haven waited outside for Coopers' return. "He continued talking the whole time," she said. \nBoth Haven and Wilkerson said Cooper made learning exciting and fostered a sense of camaraderie among students. \nAssociate Dean for Research David Koceja paid tribute to Cooper's research contributions in biomechanics.\n"Most professors are associated with a University," Koceja said. "In the case of Dr. Cooper, IU is affiliated with him. He takes real-world problems and wants to find real-world solutions. He's 92, and he's still asking the question, 'Why?'"\nKoceja said Cooper's published over 70 articles on subjects ranging from aging, reflexes, balance, sport movements, falling and track starts. \nDespite all the attention, Cooper remained humble. He said he was surprised to learn the graduate program was being named for him. When asked about inventing the jump shot, Cooper raised his shoulders in a shrug and grinned.\n-- Contact staff writer Dan Wells at djwells@indiana.edu.

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