He was also a noted sportsman, playing representative cricket and field hockey for Auckland teams.
He maintained a keen interest in sport, "read[ing] the sports results in full" at school assemblies,[10] and also finding time to manage the New Zealand national cricket team's inaugural 1955–56 tour of India.
[11] He was then named pro-chancellor, and later chancellor, of the University of Auckland, having been a longstanding member of its council.
In the 1965 New Year Honours, Cooper was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to education.
[1] His life was the subject of a 2005 biography by Andrew Mason, with a review of the book praising Cooper as a "profound meritocrat" whose "unremitting application of personal standards took him from farm boy to the best-known educationalist of his time".