Dartmouth Mourns the Passing of Longtime Tennis Assistant Terry Cooper

Service: St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Wheelock St. in Hanover, N.H.

at 2:00 pm on Saturday, June 29

Reception/Celebration to follow at the Hanover Inn

All welcome...

HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth tennis family was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of longtime assistant coach Fletcher "Terry" Cooper on May 31 at the age of 91.

In 1984, Cooper began working as an assistant coach to Chris Kerr (who served as head coach of the women's team from 1974 through 1999) and remained with the team until 2001.

Cooper did not stop at assisting with the Dartmouth women's tennis team. He also coached the JV team and was a Physical Education teacher at Dartmouth for decades.

Kerr remembers Cooper fondly:
As a head coach in athletics, if you are fortunate during your career, you will work with an assistant coach who is loyal to your institution, your program, to the students and to you. Terry was all of the above. Terry was the JV/assistant coach with me for 16 years…in terms of longevity, that was quite a feat.

We had many long van trips. Each of us sharing the driving and jousting on the best way to get to Princeton or Penn. Terry would make each trip a contest on how many hours/minutes he could shave off as he discreetly ate New York mint patties and Klondike ice cream.

As a person who always saw the glass half full, he encouraged countless varsity and JV athletes; we shared the disappointment of losses and celebrated the victories. With a memory like a rolodex, Terry knew players' names, statistics and match scores over all those 16 years.

Terry and I remained friends well after Dartmouth. He continued teaching in the Physical Education program at Dartmouth well into his 80's. If you also factor in the over 30 summers that Terry worked at Camp Tecumseh in Moultonborough, I can only imagine the scores of young people he impacted. He surely impacted me. I will miss Coach Cooper greatly.

Even after stepping away from his coaching responsibilities, Cooper remained involved with the team and he even made it out to Hanover to help cheer on the Big Green at their home match against Penn back in April.

Current head coach Bob Dallis said that "Terry was devoted to Dartmouth women's tennis and was beloved by the players he coached. He had an encyclopedic memory for scores and matches and had photo albums filled with pictures of the team, which he loved to share. I always enjoyed his visits to the Boss Tennis Center and his phone calls, when we would talk about the team and recruiting. I knew he had been sick, so it was great to see him and Chris at the team's match with Penn in early April. He was a pillar of Dartmouth athletics and the tennis community and he will be missed by everyone who had the good fortune to meet or be coached by him over the years."