More than just a big name, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is a great basketball coach. After being named the head women’s basketball coach at Prairie View A&M University on Friday, July 1, 2005, the campus has never been the same. Coach Cooper-Dyke has a 71-57 record in her fifth season at the helm of the program.
Cooper-Dyke earned a gold medal from the Olympics and four WNBA titles from her illustrious playing career.
In 2007 the school enjoyed its first-ever winning season as the Lady Panthers won a share of the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular season title, another university first, and captured their first-ever SWAC tournament championship.
The Lady Panthers earned an automatic bid and represented the SWAC in the 2007 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.
Cooper-Dyke has a total of three SWAC titles and two SWAC championships during her tenure at Prairie View.
With all the success throughout her life Cooper-Dyke is also a great person who loves to joke around and have a good time.
Her presence alone can make your day or leave you shocked on how cool a member of the woman’s basketball Hall of Fame can be.
In the last five years women’s basketball has been the premier sport at Prairie View A&M and if it wasn’t for injuries this season we may have been waving another SWAC championship.
The reason I am writing this is to say “Thank You,” Coop for bringing a winner to Prairie View A&M for the first time in the history of women’s basketball.
Cooper-Dyke has set a standard at Prairie View A&M that will be upheld for as long as she is here, and whenever she chooses to leave, her legacy as well as a tradition, will be left at the “Hill.”
That being said, I hope the University does everything in their power to keep Coach Cooper-Dyke at Prairie View A&M. Cooper-Dyke is an internationally known icon and a living Prairie View legend.
Thanks for the memories, Coop, and let’s get our SWAC title back next year. Support Prairie View A&M Athletics and notice a living legend when you see one.