There are times – Sunday mornings, for instance – when Marshall Cooper questions his sanity.
Every football player hurts the day after a game and each deals with it in his own way. Cooper, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior linebacker, uses the pain as a reminder of what it has taken to become one of the Southern Conference’s top defenders.
The bruises (“I woke up Sunday and felt like I was hit by five buses”) and broken bones (two for sure – and possibly another – in his hands alone) are like badges of honor for the former walk-on player. So are each of the 193 tackles he has made since the start of the 2018 season and the countless damage he has imparted on others.
This Sunday is likely the last time Cooper will have to roll out of bed and into an ice bath, and though that will in some way be a relief, he already knows the end of his football career will be tougher than any postgame pain.
“I’m glad we end on the road so I can get on the bus and have time to figure it out,” Cooper said of Saturday’s game at Virginia Military Institute. “It would be tougher to be at home.”
Cooper’s path to ending his career with 23 consecutive starts has been fueled by doubt. Despite earning all-star honors at Hixson High School, where he racked up 111 tackles and rushed for nearly 800 yards his senior season, colleges weren’t beating the door down for a 6-foot, not-very-fast linebacker.
He walked on at Carson-Newman, where he redshirted in 2015 and found himself standing at athletic and personal crossroads.
“I was dealing with some things in life,” he recalled. “I had dreams of playing Division I football and I was at a Division II school. I wasn’t getting a lot of reps. I got redshirted, so I started partying and getting into trouble and being in the wrong places at the wrong time.”
Always a good student, Cooper let his academics slide and soon was asked by his position coach if he felt he really wanted to be a part of the team.
He didn’t.
“It was a huge wakeup call,” Cooper said. “I didn’t have any offers coming out of high school. I was the district player of the year, but nobody really wanted me. That was a tough pill to swallow, and it took me a while to get over it. I realized that football was something I really loved.”
He called UTC seeking to walk on and was told the deadline to enroll was that day. He applied, was accepted and went to work repairing his life. He spent the 2016 season working out and studying to meet UTC’s 3.0 GPA requirement for prospective walk-ons.
“Going to class, coming home and working out for two hours, then going to Hixson to work out some more before going home and doing schoolwork. That’s all I did for months,” said Cooper who, by the way, has made the dean’s list every semester since.
Once eligible, it didn’t take him long to get noticed, appearing in 10 games (mostly on special teams) and making 21 tackles. He won a starting job on defense in 2018 and led the Mocs with 98 tackles, earning second team All-SoCon (and SoCon All-Academic) honors.
None of that, however, mattered when head coach Tom Arth left for Akron last December and former UTC player and assistant coach Rusty Wright took over the program. Wright didn’t care about anyone’s past status, and Cooper felt he had already proven himself.
After a difficult spring practice period, Cooper was again at a crossroads.
“When we got in here, there was some speculation that I wasn’t as good as I was,” he recalled. “He challenged me to get better. We came in this spring, and I had an off week. I just wasn’t in it, and some judgements were made at the beginning.
“He was tough on me, and I didn’t respond correctly to it. To be honest, though, after the first couple of weeks I wasn’t sure if I was going to be in Chattanooga much longer.”
Obviously the player and the coach worked through their disagreements, and once the season started, Cooper resumed his role as the Mocs’ supreme run-stuffer for an improved linebacker corps. Wright has stayed on him, particularly concerning practice habits, but he also has seen the sacrifices the 225-pound linebacker has made to stay on the field.
“Marshall plays his tail off and he really loves the game,” Wright said. “Me and Marshall didn’t see eye to eye when I first got here. But he has really changed, and he believes in what we are trying to do. It’s never dull.”
Cooper is scheduled next week to have surgery on his right thumb, which has been dislocated since the season opener. He hopes to have to put that off, however.
Maybe it’s because he isn’t ready to stop playing or maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but Cooper believes the Mocs (6-5, 5-2), who could share the SoCon title with a win against the Keydets (4-7, 3-4) and a Wofford loss Saturday, deserve to be in the 24-team field for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs that start next week.
“Right now, and I don’t want to talk crazy, but I’ve seen how hard this team plays and I’ve seen how we’ve developed into a good team,” he said, a prideful smile spreading. “I’ve also seen some of the teams in the top 25, and I know we could give most of them a run for their money. We proved that. I hope they give us a chance.”
Marshall Cooper, after all, knows all about second chances.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.