His foot speed will not be on display, but former sprinter Sayon Cooper (’98) will make Abilene Christian University history again this weekend when he accompanies eight top athletes from the Republic of Liberia into the bright lights and onto the purple running surface of Stade de France in Paris.

Opening Ceremonies for the 2024 Summer Olympics begin today at 12:30 p.m. CT and competition runs through Aug. 11. 

Cooper, head coach of his homeland’s track and field team, will be participating in his ACU-record fifth Summer Olympic Games – the third time as its coach following two appearances as a sprinter. In his spare time, he leads the Cooper Track Stars club for aspiring athletes in Conyers, Georgia, near his home in Atlanta.

Enlarge

Overall, he is one of 40 Olympians through the years from Abilene Christian, and only the second to coach an Olympic team. Bill McClure (’48), head ACU coach from 1963-72, was an assistant coach for the U.S. track and field team in Munich in 1972. Tom D. Smith III (’54), an American military hero who held world records in pistol shooting, competed for the U.S. in the 1964 Games in Tokyo. All other Wildcat Olympians were in track and field.

Cooper’s fourth Olympiad in Tokyo (2021) topped Wildcats Tim Bright (’83) and Delloreen Ennis (’99), who each competed in three Games. Bright was a decathlete for the U.S. in 1984 (Los Angeles) and 1988 (Seoul), and a pole vaulter in 1992 (Barcelona). Ennis was one of the world’s top 100-meter hurdlers in 2000 (Sydney), 2004 (Athens) and 2008 (Beijing) for Jamaica.

Liberia was in the midst of a seven-year-long civil war when Cooper made his first Olympic team in 1996 as a sprinter in Atlanta. He returned in 2000 to represent Liberia in the 100, 200 and 4×100 relay in Sydney.

Born in Liberia, Cooper moved with his family in 1990 to Maryland, where he finished high school. He transferred to ACU from Central State University in Ohio to earn a bachelor’s degree, and added a Master of Public Health degree in 2014 from Walden University. 

He never lost a race during a standout first season (1997) as a Wildcat, winning six individual national indoor/outdoor titles and becoming the fourth-ranked U.S. collegian in the outdoor 100 meters. That year he helped ACU relay teams win two events at the Texas Relays, indoor and outdoor NCAA Division II national team championships, and he competed in three events at the IAAF World Championships.

The Liberian team in Paris includes eight athletes who qualified to appear in the women’s 100 and 200 meters, and 100 hurdles, and the men’s 100, 200 and 4×100 relay. At the African Championships in June, Liberia’s Ebony Morrison won the women’s 100 hurdles and Joseph Fahnbulleh won the men’s 100 and 200 meters.

“The goal is to advance to the finals in each participating event and fight to get on the podium and bring Mama Liberia its first Olympic medal,” Cooper told goteamliberia.com in a recent Olympian Spotlight Series interview. The nation first participated in the Summer Olympics in 1956, the year ACU’s Bobby Morrow (’58) won three gold medals for the U.S. in Melbourne.

Cooper said he advises his athletes, “Nothing is given to you on a silver platter. You have to work hard for everything. We now live in a society where a lot of young athletes think they can get these things overnight. … You first have to dream it and believe it and then put things in motion, and then work your way up the ladder because there will be obstacles, there will be barriers, but the name of the game is ‘Don’t quit.’

“Keep grinding because all those athletes that they see on the podium, I guarantee have a lot of ups and downs that people don’t see. They just see the finished product and they think, ‘Oh, I want to be that,’ ” Cooper said. “… Keep working hard and trusting the Lord because at the end of the day, you’re going to need his grace.”

Enlarge

Another Wildcat at work at the Paris Olympics is award-winning Associated Press journalist Doug Ferguson (’83), who will be covering golf competition on two courses of the Golf National venue, which annually hosts the French Open.

His busy work and travel schedule offered only a momentary break after covering the 152nd Open Championship last week at Royal Troon Golf Club in South Ayrshire, Scotland.

Earlier this summer, Ferguson received the prestigious Memorial Golf Journalism Award at The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Previous winners are a who’s who of professionals from print and broadcast journalism history, including Jim Nantz, Frank Chirkinian, Jim McKay, Jim Murray, Dan Jenkins, Jack Whitaker and Grantland Rice. 

Ferguson received the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Gutenberg Award in 1999, and earned a Distinguished Alumni Citation from ACU in 2019, the same year he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Golf Association.

–  Ron Hadfield
July 26, 2024