By Tom Rohrer
A collegiate athletic program, along with talented, hardworking players, needs stability and consistency at the head coach position.
Since 2003, the Saint Martin’s University men’s basketball team has had just that in head coach Keith Cooper, a coach shaped by decades of playing and coaching experience in the state of Washington.
Under Cooper, the Saints have had success on the court and in the classroom, as SMU has posted back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in school history and won a Great Northwest Athletic Conference Academic title during the coach’s tenure.
Cooper believes in bringing in high character individuals, such as senior point guard Brady Bomber and forward Roger O’Neil, who work hard on the court, and show maturity and dedication towards their education.
“I’m chastising guys for getting a B+ in a class because they have all A’s in their other courses,” Copper said during a phone interview with ThurstonTalk.com. “It’s refreshing having not to worry about off the court issues and knowing that the guys will work hard towards anything or any goal. We’re big on character guys, and we get to know players before we offer them. Other teams may have more talent than us in the league, but we’re confident with our process and know we will get a great kid to represent our program.”
Cooper’s praise of his players is echoed and returned by his roster.
“No matter what, he has your back and wants the best for you on the court and in the classroom,” said O’Neil, a 6”5 senior from Edmonds. “He’s a good basketball mind too. I’ve learned a lot from him as a man and player.”
A star player at Morton High School, Cooper went on to play at the College of the Siskiyous and Tacoma Community College before embarking on a coaching pilgrimage across the state. Cooper has served as an assistant coach at Seattle Pacific University, Pacific Lutheran University and Central Washington University along with head coaching stints at Decatur High School. As an assistant, Cooper was able to learn from esteemed head coaches such as CWU coach Gil Coleman, PLU coach Bruce Haroldson and SPU coach Jeff Hironaka. Lessons passed on by those coaches have stayed with Cooper and have now found at place in Lacey.
“I’m a life-long learner, and have been blessed to take things away from all of those coaches,” Cooper said. “The game is always changing, and you have to adapt to it. You do that by applying what you’ve learned and the experiences you’ve had. When you work with the coaches I’ve been able to do so with, you have so much more applicable knowledge. Our program features traits from every one of those coaches, those mentors.”
So far this season, the Saints sit at 1-1 in official games, and 1-2 in exhibition matchups, with the latter two coming at Boise State University and Washington State University. The Saints fell to Chaminade University and defeated the University of Hawaii-Hilo to earn their .500 record and the lone exhibition win came at the Evergreen State College Tuesday night.
Cooper’s players love the opportunity to play Division-I opponents like the Broncos and Cougars, and it has been a staple of the SMU program for years, as the Saints have met big time schools like the University of Oregon in years past.
“I’m a competitor, and I used to hate losing those games to start the year,” Cooper said. “But it gets us better. We become a better team by playing them as opposed to starting off the season with a weak opponent.”
“It’s a great experience, taking in the D-I experience,” said Bomber, who hails from Lynden. “And it quickly shows us what we have to work on, where our weaknesses are.”
Finding out their strengths and weaknesses is especially important when playing in a conference as competitive as the GNAC.
“You can’t expect to beat everyone easily and there aren’t a lot of blowouts across the league,” said O’Neil, who’s 11.5 points per game is second to Evan Coultier’s team-high 12.5. “We’ve got to play and move on quickly. It’s a fun league to play in and there’s always talented players and teams.”
Cooper believes with steady point guard play from Bomber, scoring from O’Neil and Coultier and rebounding from Rei Johnson, the Saint’s could put together another successful season.
“This will be a fun team to coach,” Cooper said. “We’re still having some guys in our top-ten rotation acclimate to our style of play and the competition. But it helps having guys like Brady (who leads the team with seven assists per contest) and Evan and Roger who have talent and the leadership skills we need.”
The players echo their coaches confidence.
“Our goal every year is to get to the regional tournament and we think that’s a great possibility this season,” said Bomber, who, like O’Neil, is a two time member of the GNAC all-academic team.
“If we take games one at a time and just go about our business, we should be where we want to be at the end of the season,” O’Neil said.
The confidence and humility displayed by the Saint’s players is something Cooper values highly.
“It’s nice knowing I can go home and turn my phone off because I will never have to worry about an off the court incident,” Cooper said. “These guys are all such great kids, great young men, and that’s more important for the rest of their lives than basketball.”
“But,” Cooper said with a laugh, “That doesn’t mean we can’t be competitive, play hard and win our games as well.”
