Wranglers Excited about Cooper
Mick Cornett
Wednesday February 14, 2001
Questions and more questions. Who do we keep? Who can we sign? Who can we afford to lose? Is he still hurt? Does he have an agent? Has he ever played Arena Football? It will age a coach.
For the record, Cortese is 57 years old but recently started telling people he was 72. His reasoning? "I’d rather have them thinking I look good for 72 than bad for 57," Cortese said.
His primary off-season acquisition was Lamont Cooper, a super-quick offensive specialist that figures to return kicks and catch passes. His primary losses are center Chris Butterfield and defensive back Mark Ricks.
Cooper actually comes to the Wranglers as a player to be named later. He’s spent his entire football career using his given name of Lamart Cooper but says he is changing his name to Lamont Cooper when he switches into a Wrangler uniform. Apparently, so many people in the past miss-pronounced his name that he’s decided to make it easy on us.
By any name, Cooper should be a star.
He’s had an interesting AFL career. He was 2nd team all-league with Iowa in 1997 but was hurt in ’98 and left for Milwaukee in ’99. He promptly got hurt again and started the ’00 season as one of the Mustang’s backups. But then an injury to starter Alvin Ashley allowed him a chance to play. He wound up with seven kickoff returns for a touchdown. His play on special teams landed him the AFL’s “Don’t Blink Award” which goes to the league’s top kick-returner.
This time a year ago, he was driving a school bus in Milwaukee wondering if he’d ever get a chance to start again. In Oklahoma, he’ll still be in the driver’s seat as he expects a starting role.
So what does Cooper’s arrival mean for last year’s offensive specialist Carlos Johnson? That’s what training camp will reveal as Johnson seeks to bounce back from the knee injury that ended his season last August.
Mick Cornett was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2001.
