A prominent link to Missouri’s football past was lost on Thursday when longtime assistant football coach Clay Cooper died at Boone Hospital Center. He was 89 years old.

Cooper

No assistant coach in more than a century of MU football coached more seasons than Cooper, a Hickman and MU graduate, who joined Don Faurot’s football staff in 1947. He held that position for the next 29 seasons, working under head coaches Faurot, Frank Broyles, Dan Devine and Al Onofrio. Even when Cooper retired from coaching after the 1975 season, he didn’t really retire from MU football. He spent another 10 years as the Tigers’ recruiting coordinator under both Onofrio and his successor, Warren Powers.

"He was just a classy guy," said former All-American defensive back John Moseley, who played at MU from 1971-73 and remained close with Cooper while both lived in Columbia the last few decades.

"When you’re a player, you want your coach’s approval of what you’re doing. But I knew him in my adult life, too, and that transcended to then, too. I respected his opinion of what I was doing as I got older. He was just a classy, quality guy."

Born in Corydon, Ky., in 1917, Cooper moved to Columbia in 1932 and led Hickman to an undefeated football season in 1935 and the state high school basketball title in 1936. Cooper earned nine varsity letters at MU - three each in football, basketball and track - and won Big Six Conference titles with each team. After college, he coached a few years in Joplin then commanded PT boats in the Pacific during World War II.

After serving, he returned to his alma mater where Faurot hired him as a football and basketball assistant coach. He worked for both teams until 1959 when he dropped the basketball duties - but not before coaching the 1952 freshman team that included a kid from Shelbyville named Norm Stewart.

During Cooper’s five decades spent on the football staff, 55 other MU assistant coaches came and went through the program. Primarily a defensive backs coach, Cooper tutored some of the greatest players in team history, including College Football Hall of Famers Johnny Roland and Roger Wehrli.

"He deserves credit for that," Moseley said. "A lot of being a defensive back is being able to cover, particularly the way we played. Back when Johnny Roland and Roger Wehrli played, and when I played, we never played a zone. … And one thing that always made me chuckle about Coach Cooper, we’d be watching film and see a play and he’d say, ‘Well, that comes under the heading of playing football.’ What he meant was, ‘Just get the job done.’ "

In 1999, the Tribune ranked the 100 most influential Columbia sports figures during the 20th century. Cooper was No. 20.

"In 40 years at MU," he told the Tribune two years ago, "we were never guilty of any violations."

Cooper, who played tennis twice a week until shortly before his death, is survived by his wife of 65 years, Frances Cooper, eight children and 13 grandchildren.

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