The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Former Longhorn Cooper hired as Texas A&M University-Commerce athletics director
06.19.2007 | Men's Basketball
COMMERCE, Texas -- Former University of Texas student-athlete Carlton Cooper has been hired as the new athletics director at Texas A&M University-Commerce, university president Keith D. Farland announced Monday, June 18.
Cooper, who has spent the last nine years working for the athletics department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, comes with an extensive background as a former student-athlete and as a supervisor of internal and external affairs within intercollegiate athletics. At A&M-Commerce, he will be responsible for the oversight of 11 intercollegiate sports that participate in the Lone Star Conference.
Cooper played college basketball at The University of Texas from 1982-85 and was later drafted by the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. He went on to serve as a player/coach in the Netherlands, New Zealand and Philippines before returning to Paris (Texas) High School in 1994 to become the head boys' basketball coach and assistant principal .
Cooper, a four-year letterwinner at Texas, also served as an assistant basketball coach when the Longhorns won the 1986 Southwest Conference regular season conference title. Cooper earned a bachelor of science in education from UT in 1985. A two-time member of the Dean's List, he received the Texas Teacher Certificate in 1985. Cooper earned a graduate certificate in mediation/arbitration from SMU in 2000, and a master's of liberal arts from SMU in December 2001.
Since 2000, Cooper has served as the senior associate athletics director for internal operations at SMU where he is responsible for the coordination of day-to-day internal operations of the athletics department while assisting the director of athletics in supervising and providing leadership for department initiatives. He has been involved in the development of long-range and annual operating plans. Cooper also oversees community and guest relations, equipment room, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, video operations, team travel, stadium maintenance/concessions and security operations. In addition, he has also served on multiple committees for the university, Conference USA, Western Athletic Conference and the NCAA.
Prior to his current position at SMU, Cooper served as the athletics department's community relations director from 1998-2000. He founded the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) for SMU and developed the curriculum for the SMU PIKE Big Brother Program (SMU/Dallas Public Schools tutoring and mentoring program). Cooper designed "Reading Our Way to College," a reading program for DISD fourth-grade students and created the SMU/MLK (Martin Luther King Center) "Road to the Pros" career lecture series featuring national sports, education and business leaders.
Cooper holds memberships to a number of organizations and serves as a board member for the Dallas All-Sports Association, SMU Advisory Board for the new student recreation center, Longhorn Hall of Honor, SMU Ex-Student Association, and the University of Texas Ex-Students Association. He also serves on the NCAA Championship Cabinet, and is involved in the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Dallas Asian and Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and the Longhorn Foundation.
The Paris, Texas, native was recently added to the Wall of Fame at the Boys and Girls Club of the Red River Valley.
[Press release courtesy of Texas A&M University-Commerce Sports Information Department]
