The son of a coal miner who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[3] Cooney enrolled at Exeter,[3] where he played both football and baseball.
[4] Cooney was a coveted blue-chip player who was initially committed to enroll at Harvard.
[3] In his freshman year, he played left tackle for Princeton's championship team that defeated Yale 11–6.
[5] Cooney was selected as captain of the Princeton football team for 1905 and president of the senior class of 1907.
He became superintendent of International Salt Co. in Ithaca, New York, and later headed the Scranton Coal Company.