Friends and family of the late W.C. “Dub” Cooper gathered this past week as the Tullahoma City Schools Board of Education honored Cooper’s legacy as the 28th recipient of the Clyde Smith Jr. Leadership Award.

The reception was held at the TCS Administration Building on Tuesday, Oct. 20, where family, friends, former students and colleagues filled the room to celebrate and honor Coach Cooper. The award, named for the former TCS chairman Clyde W. Smith Jr., who died in 2010, recognizes individuals in the Tullahoma City Schools system for excellence in educational leadership. The school board nominated and unanimously selected Cooper as this year’s recipient at its August meeting.

Board Chairman Kim Uselton welcomed everyone and said that the board was incredibly honored to celebrate Cooper as this year’s recipient. First to speak about Cooper was board member Pat Welsh, who shared Cooper’s history. According to Welsh, Cooper was born and raised in Knoxville, just across from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Cooper would play football at Knoxville City High School, where he made both All State and All South. He would play as a tailback for UT, graduate and marry his wife, Betty, before joining the Air Force, where he would continue to play football on the Air Force base team in Texas. He was on vacation when he stopped in Tullahoma and took the job as assistant football coach at Tullahoma High School in 1954. He would move up and serve as the head coach from 1956 to 1966, where he would cement his legacy as the “Legend of the Gridiron,” as he would lead the Wildcats to a 68-36-6 record and capture the Central Tennessee Conference titles four times. He would coach the girls basketball team and serve as athletic director. He would retire from coaching and move into administration as the principal at West Junior High School.

Welsh noted that when he realized that his father faced Cooper during the UT vs. Alabama game, where his dad played for Alabama at the time, he started going over to Cooper’s house. He shared with Cooper’s twin sons, Dirk and Mike, that every time he made his way down the hall, he would stop and point to a picture of them.

“‘Those are my boys,’” Welsh quoted Cooper. “He said it with emotion.”

Following Welsh was Waylon Long, who shared stories of Cooper during his time as a principal. Long praised Cooper and said the attributes of a good football coach and a good principal are very much the same.

“You have to be organized,” Long said. “You have to be able to take a group of disparate individuals and mold them together into a team unit for common goals, and he was certainly capable of doing that.”

Long also shared other stories from Cooper’s time as principal to his love of fishing and fishing with him. He wrapped up and said that he was pleased that Cooper was receiving the award, but he shared one more fishing story.

“Betty told me that when Mike and Dirk were born and Mr. Cooper first looked through the window to see them in the incubator, he said, ‘I’ve got bigger fish than this,’,” Long said, which was met with laughter from attendees.

Next to speak was Sara Ann Jernigan, who was one of Cooper’s basketball players when he coached. She, along with her teammate Janice, were wearing their high school jerseys in honor of Cooper. She shared that Cooper had also coached her two brothers before she joined the basketball team, and she shared their memories of Cooper.

“They said they remember he was always very composed and always supported his players,” Jernigan shared from her brothers.

She continued to share other statements from his former players who praised his coaching and how he treated his players. She echoed the sentiment and shared her own experiences from Cooper as her coach.

“Dub Cooper was just a wonderful coach,” Jernigan said. “As a player, I feel very fortunate to have played under him.”

The final person to speak was Jon Gray, who shared that when he played football, he was about to join the line before Cooper stopped him by grabbing him by the ear.

“‘What in the heck are you doing over here?’” Gray quoted Cooper. “I said, ‘Coach, I don’t think I’m good enough to be a back.”

“Let me figure that out,” Cooper said to Gray. “Get your tail over there with the backs where you belong.”

Gray continued and said Cooper made it known he could do what he asked of him and be better than Gray thought.

“I thank him for giving me the belief in myself that I carried through my whole life,” Gray said. “He’s one of the people that made me fearless. You cannot walk through life in fear, and he’s one of the reasons that I never have.”

When Gray finished, Uselton thanked Mike and Dirk Cooper for attending and hoped they enjoyed some of the many stories about their father. She then led the board and attendees in the room to give one last round of applause to in honor and celebration of W.C. “Dub” Cooper and everything he did for Tullahoma City Schools.