Catching Up With ...
        Father-son soccer duo Mark and Jeffrey Collings (June 17)
        Track record holder and longtime SPU leader John Glancy (June 24)
        U.S. Olympic Track Trials competitor Jessica Pixler Tebo (July 1)
        State championship gymnastics coach Kathie Cradduck Koch (July 8)
        First-ever women's soccer signee Jennifer Hull (July 15)
        Gymnast and charitable fundraiser Mindy Lee Ferguson Irvine (July 25)
        Wrestling coach and longtime Sonics trainer Frank Furtado (July 29)


By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – She's still the all-time leading scorer in Seattle Pacific women's basketball history.
 
She also has the third-highest rebound total and second-highest number of steals by any Falcon ever.
 
None of that is likely to change soon.

 

So one would think that during her four seasons in maroon, Linda Johnson lived and breathed the game. That her entire focus was on the next basket, the next board, or the next swipe.
 
Not quite.
 
In fact, Johnson – now Linda Cooper – was just as focused on her studies as a chemistry major. Athletically, she was as happy on the track as she was on the court.
 
"I didn't think basketball was my primary sport," said the 49-year-old Cooper, these days an oncology nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital on South Seattle's Beacon Hill. "(Growing up), I played basketball because my friends played," she said. "The whole neighborhood played. It was rat-ball."
 
That one-time rat-baller is now one of just two women's basketball players in the Falcon Legends Hall of Fame. (Tosca Lindberg, who also starred in volleyball, is the other.) She helped take a team that had suffered through seven straight losing seasons to a 67-46 record during her four years, including the first playoff appearance in history.
 
And then, of course, there were those 1,842 points, the 907 rebounds, and the 282 steals.
 
"I'm surprised it's actually still there, to be honest," Cooper said of her scoring record. "Those were not any of the goals at all. I didn't really have any goals.
 
"I just wanted to have fun, play basketball, and try to win games."
 
FROM THE TRAILS TO THE COURT TO THE TRACK
Growing up in Oak Harbor, about 90 miles north of Seattle, Cooper did something that not many athletes do any more:
 
She took part in three sports. In the fall, there was cross country. Winter time was for basketball. Then it was outdoors for track, where her favorite events were the 800 and 3200 meters.
 
"At the time, I was more of a track person – I liked to run, and I was a cross country runner," she said. "I ran a lot."
 
Ran very fast, too. At Oak Harbor High School, Cooper qualified for the state track meet all four years. She placed in the 3200 as a sophomore (fifth), junior (sixth) and senior (seventh). She also was sixth in the 800 as a junior in 1984.
 
As a Wildcats junior in the fall of 1983, Cooper earned a trip to Spokane for the state cross country championships, coming across the line 16th in the AAA (large-school) race with a time of 19 minutes, 20.3 seconds for three miles.
 
On her basketball team, the 5-foot-10 Cooper was one of the tallest athletes, so played the post position. ("It seems nowadays, 5-10 would be too small for small forward – it might even be too short for point guard," she said with a laugh.) Oak Harbor made it to the regional playoffs during her junior and senior seasons.
 
With that multi-sport talent, SPU women's basketball coach Nels Hawkinson and track coach Doris Heritage both wanted her in Seattle.
 
"From the moment I saw her in high school, I dreamed of having her in a Falcon uniform," Hawkinson said. "She was and still is amazing."
 
Along with four years of basketball, Cooper did wind up doing two seasons of track.
 
"She was not only a very good athlete, but she was a very fine person," Heritage said. "I think her attitude and personality really brought out the best in others. I can't think of one minute when she wasn't inspirational, positive, and pleasant."
 
CHANGE OF PLANS, THEN INSTANT IMPACT
While Seattle Pacific was high on Cooper's list, it wasn't actually her first choice. She wanted to attend the Air Force Academy, and went through the rigorous testing and nomination processes that are needed to win one of those coveted slots in Colorado Springs.
 
But the medical tests yielded some unexpected news that grounded those plans permanently.
 
"They reviewed my case, and I was just waiting for a plane ticket to go to the academy," she said. "They found out that I only had one kidney. So I couldn't go there.
 
"Doris and Nels were still in contact with me, so basically, it was SPU."

 

Thus did Cooper become a Falcon, albeit in Seattle Pacific maroon instead of Air Force blue. Always with an affinity for math and the sciences, she chose chemistry as a major (nursing wasn't on her radar yet).
 
"Once I was working toward my major and just kind of getting focused, it (basketball) became more focused," she said. "With chemistry, basically, all the classes were in the morning, and practice was in the afternoon. Then I could do the labs after practice."
 
Cooper led SPU in scoring in six of her first eight college games. That included 21 points on both nights of the season-opening Falcon Tip-Off Classic in Brougham Pavilion against Pacific-10 schools Washington State and UCLA.
 
She finished that freshman season averaging 11.6 points and shooting 51.4 percent from the field as the Falcons ended their string of losing records by going 14-14, with wins in six of their last nine games.
 
The following winter, Cooper took over as the team's leading scorer (18.9) and rebounder (9.6), and also set the pace with 64 steals, all while shooting .522 from the floor. She was named a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) third-team All-American.
 
"Even after all these years, she had the sweetest jumper of any male or female player I've ever seen," recalled Hawkinson, her coach for those first two seasons.
 
 
TAKING IT UP A NOTCH
By the time practice started in the fall of 1987, Gordy Presnell had taken over as head coach, beginning what would be an 18-year reign that took SPU to national prominence. Cooper remembers that junior year being a bit of a scramble at the start because Presnell wasn't named to the job until right before practice began.
 
"Things got moving pretty quickly, and we just had to regroup," she recalled.
 
Regroup the Falcons did, winning six of their first eight games on the way to a 16-11 overall mark. Cooper averaged a career-high 20.7 points and 9.6 rebounds, had 86 steals, and was an honorable mention All-American.
 
Rather than recalling one specific game or moment that was instrumental in her career, she said that particular year was a turning point of sorts.
 
"It was something that just evolved," Cooper said. "The first couple years, I was just getting into college and the routine, and just having fun with my teammates."
 
Her senior year was particularly fun, as the team went 24-6 and advanced to the NAIA district playoffs, the first Seattle Pacific team to taste postseason women's hoops action, boosted by Cooper's 19.4 points, 9.4 rebounds, and team-high 74 steals. The Falcons beat Pacific Lutheran in that first playoff game, 96-64, before the season ended with a 69-63 loss to Western Washington.
 
TRUE TO THE BLUE … IN SCRUBS OR AT SAFECO FIELD
That ended her college basketball career. Some three months later, Cooper earned her bachelor of science degree. Having long had an interest in the medical field, Cooper enrolled in nursing school at Shoreline Community College in 1991, and had her nursing degree two years later.
 
Today, she is certified for oncology and bone marrow transplant. She worked previously as a hospice nurse (and sees herself doing that again someday) and also spent some time in administrative work. Now, as Cooper puts it, she's "enjoying time being a worker bee" for the VA, where she has been for three years.

 

"I like taking care of the vets and meeting their needs," she said. "It's just being able to help someone in their time of need – just listening to them, talking about the Mariners, and just helping people."
 
Ah, yes … the Mariners.

Cooper is a big-time fan and attends all of the home games. She and Keith Cooper, her husband of 27 years whom she met at SPU and who previously was the head men's basketball coach at Saint Martin's, were at Cooperstown last month when Ken Griffey Jr. was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
 
That's one reason why Cooper loves her night hours at the VA: She can make the drive from their home in Olympia and go to the game, and still be at the hospital when her midnight-to-8 a.m. shift begins.
 
"I've always worked the night shift – that's where I thrive," she said. "It coordinates well with the Mariners schedule, and the commute is easy to work and getting home. So it works out really well."
 
Like most athletes, Cooper looks back and says she might change one or two things … but that's all.
 
"If I could do it over, I would spend more time with teammates and build relationships," she said. "I think I would have more fun, and maybe a little more purpose. I wouldn't change my goals at all, but basketball is something I would focus on more."
 
Hard to argue with the focus Linda Cooper had while she was here though – just check out her long-standing scoring record.
 
And that's not likely to change any time soon.