A mainstay at all College of Idaho athletic events, student-athletes have the opportunity to get to know Boyd Cooper during their four years at the College. Most, however, do not know that Cooper is one of the oldest living Coyote football players and boxers alive.
A native of Vale, Ore., Cooper played football for the Vale Vikings as a senior in 1944 before spending two years in the U.S. Army. Upon returning to the Treasure Valley, he enrolled at the C of I – and had a reunion of sorts. “When I went out for football in the fall of 1947, I found six of my former Vale High School teammates from that 1944 squad on the team.”
The former offensive guard fondly remembers the 1948 fall camp – during a time when a polio outbreak had hit the Valley. Head coach Clem Parberry bused the team up to McCall, holding preseason workouts on the McCall Golf Course fairways. Showering was a bit interesting for the group.
“We asked Coach (Clem) Parberry where the showers were, Cooper said. “He told us ‘well, you have the lake there’ and I remember the Hawaiian boys we had on the team, they ran out there on the dock and jumped in that Payette Lake and were they shocked (at the cold).”
After receiving his degree from the College in 1951, Cooper began a long career as a local businessman in the retail shoe business and has been a huge supporter of the reestablishment of the Coyote football program.
“I feel a football program will increase the enrollment at the College, rejuvenate the campus, and put more spirit in the student body by making Homecoming more meaningful,” Cooper said.
