He was the oldest of six children born to Clay Calhoun Cooper, a cattleman, and Martha Barrett Randolph, a homemaker and boarding house operator.
[1] Cooper served 40 months in the military, achieving the rank of captain, before being honorably discharged so that he might resume his studies.
[2] According to journalist Bill Pennington, writing in The New York Times in 2011, the origins of the "jumper" are a matter of significant scholarly dispute: Basketball historians have narrowed the jump shot incubation period to the early 1930s.
And they have focused on a handful of athletes, with Cooper, a college teenager eager to be airborne in a flat-footed, set-shot-taking world, at center stage.
[3]According to Cooper himself, he learned the revolutionary shooting technique by watching a player from the University of Chicago team practicing at his high school's gym.
[2] Inspired by what he had seen, Cooper intentionally practiced jumping and shooting the ball in mid-air during his high school career and brought the shot with him to MU.
His research and teaching at Indiana University brought international recognition to the reputation of our graduate programs in general, and biomechanics in particular.