Annapolis, Md. — Paul Harris learned two lessons in one moment.
First, coasting is not an option while wearing a U.S. Naval Academy track-and-field uniform. Second, his coach — Stephen Cooksey — is quite comfortable standing out in a crowd.
Harris got both messages, loud and clear, as he crossed the finish line first in a race that helped Navy defeat archrival Army at West Point on Feb. 3. With a spacious two-second lead, Harris jogged the last few steps of the 500-meter run.
“Everybody was cheering, and he was the only one yelling at me,” Harris recalls, with a grin. “He came over later and said, ‘I just want to make you better.’”
As Harris tells that story, his Midshipmen teammates — dressed identically in light gray “Navy” sweats — flow into Halsey Field House, a half-century-old gym named for Academy legend and World War II hero Adm. William “Bull” Halsey. Their voices echo under its arched, 70-foot-tall roof. In the distance, over Harris’ muscular, 20-year-old shoulder, Cooksey gives his hurdlers pointers on their technique.
“Most of the athletes here understand he cares about you and wants the best out of you,” Harris says.
Few people realize the value of caring more than Cooksey.
Today, the 56-year-old Terre Haute native leads one of Navy’s most successful athletic programs, having won 237 of 268 meets since becoming head coach of the Midshipmen 19 years ago. He’s also an associate professor of physical education there. Cooksey and his wife, Valerie, a financial planner for Smith-Barney, have a home in this historic city, where the white color of spectacular sailboats and sea gulls add contrast to the scenic blue of Chesapeake Bay. The Cookseys live “affluently,” according to his talkative assistant coach, Al Cantello.
Things could have turned out differently.
“I’ve been really lucky,” Cooksey says in an office with walls covered in photos of over-achievers he’s coached. “My whole life has been people looking at me and saying, ‘Hey, we’ll give that person some help.’ And if it wasn’t for that, I would’ve been in trouble. I would’ve had a much rougher life.”
Close-knit family
Cooksey never knew his parents. At the age of “1 or 2,” he was left at the Glenn Home, a now-defunct orphanage in eastern Vigo County. For the next 16 years of his life, that orphanage was Cooksey’s home.
Like other black kids there, he attended the segregated District 3 elementary school in Lost Creek until the desegregation movement of the 1950s put students of all races together in Vigo County. When that happened, Cooksey quickly found a friend in Steve Higham, a fellow second-grader at a school in Seelyville, where Higham’s father, Jim, served as principal.
“He and I became buddies right away,” recalls Steve Higham, a longtime teacher and coach at Terre Haute North Vigo High School. Sometimes, Cooksey would get permission from the Glenn Home to spend weekends with the Highams.
Their friendship — forged between kids of two races in an era when integration faced raw, stubborn objections across America — has lasted nearly 50 years.
Another family, the Reyhers, opened its hearts and home to Cooksey during his junior year at Gerstmeyer High School. He and Mike Reyher were close friends and teammates on the Black Cats’ varsity basketball team. On some weekends when Gerstmeyer had long road trips to Evansville, the Glenn Home allowed Cooksey to stay overnight with the Reyhers, a family of five children whose father, Bill, ran Ace Neon Co. and mother, Lea, worked at Sears. Eventually, they invited Cooksey to move out of the orphanage and live with them.
“He’s been one of us ever since,” says Lea Reyher-Long, who is now 81 and remarried after Bill passed away.
Cooksey quickly made a positive impact on the family.
He taught Kehrt, one of the younger Reyher boys, to high jump. A few years later Kehrt set a school record at Terre Haute North in that event.
Kehrt also remembers Cooksey working a summer job loading trucks at Hulman & Co. just before starting college at Indiana State University, where Stephen became ISU’s first NCAA Division I track and field All-American.
“He’d end the day bone-tired but still had to do his workouts,” Kehrt recalls. “I was always impressed by that.”
Stephen and the Reyhers became a close-knit family, even if some other segments of society weren’t so accepting.
“One of the things that struck me later was what it meant for a black kid to move into an all-white neighborhood,” says Kehrt. “To me, at the time, it was just cool, and I had a special new brother. But I’m sure my parents endured some unpleasant moments.”
Indeed, at one point, they had to switch barbershops so Stephen could get his haircut along with the rest of the family.
“We just said, if he can’t go, then we’ll just change,” Lea says, her voice breaking. “It wasn’t easy, but we made it through.”
Cooksey’s resiliency fit right in with the Reyhers. He never complained about life in the Glenn Home, Lea says. Even now, Cooksey seems grateful to those who cared for him at the orphanage.
“To me, it was just a big group of kids — people that you hung out with, that you grew up with,” he says. “People were coming and going. And there were a whole bunch of us that were there forever.
“If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good life at all,” Cooksey adds. “So there were people that were looking after me and took care of me in that situation.”
Likewise, he views Terre Haute as a place where friendships could be found.
“It made no difference whether you were black or white to a lot of kids that you grew up with. It was just that way,” Cooksey says. “Everybody was more interested in, ‘Can you play sports?’”
‘Be a teacher first’
Cooksey could indeed play sports. After a stellar high school career at Gerstmeyer, he got offers to play basketball at North Carolina State and Oregon, among others. But, inspired by track-and-field legend Bill Welch’s coaching at Gerstmeyer, Cooksey chose a career in that sport at Indiana State under Coach Bill Malloy. By the time he graduated in 1972, Cooksey held school records in the high jump and triple jump.
He’d also made some valuable contacts inside the college coaching ranks. That list included veteran Indiana University Coach Sam Bell, who encouraged Cooksey to pursue coaching. Bell told him, “If you’re going to be a coach, you’ve got to be a teacher first.”
That credo stuck with Cooksey.
In 1974, Cooksey took his first coaching job as an assistant in track and cross country at Ball State. Four years later, when the head coach fell ill, Cooksey took over as interim head coach. The next season, he fully assumed leadership of the cross country and track programs.
Without fanfare, Cooksey had become Ball State’s first black head coach in any sport. But he had no time to ponder racial milestones. Instead, Cooksey had to deal with the university limiting his coaching staff to him and a graduate student assistant.
“My big problem was, they didn’t want to give me another assistant, so you weren’t thinking about those kinds of things,” Cooksey says.
Short-handed, Cooksey’s program struggled. “There were some trying times,” he recalls.
His ability to teach led him toward brighter days, though.
A youngster named Leo Williams, who Cooksey agreed to coach as a high jumper to keep him from hanging around and disrupting the Ball State practices, grew into a prime college prospect as a high-schooler. Cooksey wanted him at Ball State, but one day Williams came to him with a recruiting letter from the U.S. Naval Academy.
“I told him, ‘You know, Leo, Ball State could never give you what the Naval Academy could give you. I mean, this is life-changing. So you really need to think about this,’” Cooksey says now.
Williams took his advice, accepted Navy’s offer and became a world-class athlete at Annapolis. Cooksey and Williams kept in touch, and still do.
Through that connection, Cooksey became acquainted with Cantello, then the Midshipmen’s head coach. Cooksey interviewed to join Cantello as an assistant once, and the coach turned him down. A few years later, Cantello hired Cooksey, with the agreement that within three to four years, Cooksey would replace him as head track-and-field coach. In 1988, that happened.
“All of a sudden someone said, ‘Do you realize you’re the first black head coach in the history of the Naval Academy?’” Cooksey says, remembering the moment.
He delivered a disarming response. “What I said was, ‘Do you realize you’re the first white person to ask me that?’” Cooksey recalls, with a laugh. “And I think he got the message.”
‘He’s the man’
Cooksey sports an amazing .884 winning percentage with the Midshipmen, including victories in 16 of Navy’s last 19 duels with Army. Winning those Army-Navy matchups “is so huge,” explains Navy sports information assistant Jonathan Maggart.
But Cooksey is a prime asset to the academy for reasons beyond the record books, Cantello says. Cantello should know. He’s been at the academy long enough to remember the football team’s last victory over Notre Dame. (It came in 1963, his first year in Annapolis. “We haven’t beat ’em since,” Cantello says.)
Cooksey, he says, “is a gentleman. And that’s in italics.”
Cantello once threw the javelin at world-record distances as an Olympian in 1960, but he doesn’t throw around insincere praise. He tells stories, cracks jokes and shares good-natured ribbing with the Midshipmen, who are nearly 50 years younger than him. He’s spent the last 23 years working alongside Cooksey, after agreeing to serve as the assistant when Cooksey replaced him as head coach.
They’ve weathered occasional disagreements. “We’ve laced ’em up a few times,” Cantello says. “The last thing I am is a rubber stamp.”
That candor makes his respect for Cooksey even more impressive.
“He is a phenomenal coach, a phenomenal Christian and a phenomenal teacher, who doesn’t drink,” Cantello says.
“If you were going to go out on a national hunt to find who displays the kind of image you’d want for this place — the U.S. Naval Academy — he’s the man,” Cantello says, jabbing the cool air of Halsey Field House with his finger, for emphasis.
Back in his office, Cooksey is more comfortable talking about things other than himself — the academy’s plans for a spectacular new indoor track facility, his current team, former athletes who call him often, his family and friends back in Terre Haute, and his wife and their daughter, 28-year-old Brooke Mervine. Reminders of them fill the room.
On top of the TV, is a stone bearing the phrase “never, never quit.”
There’s also a plaque on the wall, quoting former President Calvin Coolidge. It begins, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”
Lea Reyher-Long sees those qualities in Stephen Cooksey. “He’s a self-made person,” she says proudly.
Yet Cooksey appreciates the people who became his family, his friends, his teachers and his coaches — all who offered help along his path from that orphanage in Terre Haute to the picturesque shores of Chesapeake Bay.
“When you think about not knowing your parents … hey, that’s rough,” he says. “But at the same time, there are a whole bunch of people there to make that road much easier as you’ve traveled it over your life.”
Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.
Black History Month
Related Photos
-
JOSEPH C. GARZA
Discussion
Welcome to our online comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable as well as posts that are attacking other users. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator.
February 18, 2007
Black History Month: Terre Haute native leads one of Navy’s most successful athletic programs
- Black History Month
-
- Councilman’s plan: Help Terre Haute grow by working with other cities Neil Garrison, city councilman, has implemented a new plan that fosters unity between communities similar to Terre Haute.
-
Black History Month: Carter Goodwin Woodson 'Father of Black History'
Carter Goodwin Woodson, a black author, editor, publisher and historian, was born in December 1875 and lived until April 1950. Woodson believed that African-Americans should know about their past in order to cooperate intelligently in the affairs of our country. Strongly he believed that African-American history is a firm foundation for young Black Americans.
He is known as the “Father of Black History” and held an important position in black history in early 20th century American history. - Correction March 16, 2007 The Tribune-Star corrects errors. If you believe we have made an error, contact Editor Max Jones at (812) 231-4336 or e-mail him at max.jones@tribstar.com.
- There’s still a lot to learn When I sat in the first meeting discussing plans for Black History Month, I knew this was going to be a challenge. Although it was mid-January, something told me we would still need more time.
-
Capturing history while we can
When the idea for a month-long project on Black History Month was suggested, I was excited and a bit apprehensive.
Being a history buff, the idea of rooting around in archives and yearbooks, and talking to members of older generations really appealed to me. - Persevering over obstacles When I was in school, I remember reading Ralph Elison’s poem “Invisible Man” and not understanding why he thought of himself as “invisible.” But in studying a little about local black history I believe I got a glimpse of what he meant. I think for hundreds of years there was a feeling among the majority of Americans that this land was a white, European nation and black people, native Americans and other non-Europeans were aliens who should be kept out of sight — made “invisible” — by being placed on reservations, deported back to Africa, or legally kept in legally segregated schools or in different neighborhoods.
- Deming students send Black History Month out with musical celebration Black History Month went out in style in Deming Elementary on Wednesday afternoon as students and guests shared, in words and song, some of the lessons of the monthlong celebration.
- Black History Month: Phillis Wheatley Association worked to create dormitory for black women The not-for-profit Phillis Wheatley Association of Terre Haute was incorporated in 1923 to provide a dormitory for black women students of Indiana State Teachers College.
- Black History Month: Color barrier broken in Valley When a man asked Marcella Herndon, 74, if she would be interested in posing for a photo to advertise beer, she was a little skeptical.
-
Black History Month: Former resident looks back on his days in Vigo County’s ‘colored orphans home’
James Anderson lived at the “colored orphans home” east of Terre Haute more than 60 years ago, but looking out over the wooded and hilly landscape where he spent much of his childhood, it “almost seems like yesterday,” he said.
- Black History Month: Evangeline Merriweather heads toward historic marker Although Evangeline Evelyn Harris Merriweather was widely known in Vigo County as a teacher, writer and musician, it was her writing that likely will earn her a historical marker.
- Black History Month: Terre Haute barber Edward James Roye became fifth president of Liberia The man who became the fifth president of Liberia, Edward James Roye, once was known to have the largest barber pole in the Midwest, about 79 feet tall.
- Teacher, Democratic committeewoman still influencing city council Theresa Turner served in Terre Haute as a Democratic precinct committeewoman for almost 60 years, longer than anyone else in the city’s history, according to her family.
- Bell, renowned veterinarian, spent 20 years on Vigo County School Board Iverson C. Bell was called “one of the most contributing members of our community” by the late Mayor P. Pete Chalos in 1984.
- Terre Haute formed first black fire station in September 1891 The first all-black fire company in Terre Haute was organized Sept. 10, 1891, in old hose company No. 1 at Lafayette Avenue and Sycamore Street, according to Fire Department historian Tom Champion.
-
Black History Month: Valley resident became college dean, ambassador
Ambassador Cynthia Norton Shepard Perry, now U.S. director of the African Development Bank in Ivory Coast, was born in Lost Creek township in 1928, one of nine children.
-
Black History Month: Author of 5 books building legacy across Indiana
If there was one message Daisy Hood drilled into her eight children in the 1920s and ’30s, it was the importance of contributing to one’s community.
The message was lived by Daisy herself who, despite being crippled from childhood polio, was a well-known community activist and educator in Terre Haute during the days of black and white segregation. Daisy was instrumental in the development of the Charles T. Hyte Community Center, the Colored Day Nursery and the Phyllis Wheatley Home. She also sat on numerous boards, including the Terre Haute branch of the NAACP. -
Black History Month: Terre Haute native leads one of Navy’s most successful athletic programs
Paul Harris learned two lessons in one moment.
First, coasting is not an option while wearing a U.S. Naval Academy track-and-field uniform. Second, his coach — Stephen Cooksey — is quite comfortable standing out in a crowd. - Black History Month: Emancipation Proclamation once celebrated in Terre Haute Terre Haute’s black citizens used to celebrate the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation every Sept. 22 with a day off from work and school.
- Black History Month: Jenkins, scholar-athlete at Wiley, became Morgan State University president Martin Jenkins, who has been called a “forgotten pioneer” in the study of intellectually gifted black Americans, was born and raised in Terre Haute, where he was an outstanding scholar and athlete at Wiley High School.
- Black History Month: Colored Day Nursery provided care for black kids From 1908 to 1966, the Colored Day Nursery in Terre Haute provided care and meals to black children whose parents worked. The nursery was organized by a group of mothers to “serve the colored working mothers of the neighborhood,” according to the book “The Negro in the History of Indiana” by John Lyda.
- African Global Night set for Feb. 24 at ISU On Feb. 24, the African Students Union together with other departments within and outside Indiana State University will sponsor African Global Night to celebrate Black History Month.
- Black History Month: Mother Bettie is a TH living legend Bettie Eleanor Davis, 85, is a Terre Haute native whose love of young people and interest in sharing the history of her people have made her a local treasure. Davis, also known as Mother Bettie, is a volunteer and activist who has been researching and telling the history of black people in Terre Haute for more than a decade.
- Clarification: Feb. 13, 2007 The Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation began meeting in a local home in 1837, prior to the construction of the first church at First and Crawford streets in 1839. The church was referenced in a Monday Tribune-Star article on the Underground Railroad.
- Black History Month: Wood craftsman spent his life in Terre Haute making violins It is difficult to imagine what tools he might have had access to, what kind of a workshop he may have had and how he learned to create one of the most intricate musical instruments in the world.
- Black History Month: Terre Haute native was influential U.S. pilot Willa Beatrice Brown left Terre Haute at age 21 and eventually became one of the most influential aviators in U.S. history.
-
Black History Month: Valley’s role on Underground Railroad still being revealed
In a day when skin color differentiated the masters from the slaves, many people took a chance by putting their lives in the hands of strangers, traveling hundreds of miles north through the Wabash Valley in search of freedom.
More information about Vigo County’s role in that system comes to light each day, but because of the extreme secrecy of the Underground Railroad, it’s unsure if its entire, storied history ever will be revealed. - Black History Month: Demetrius ‘Dee’ Ewing broke business barriers in Terre Haute Born on Halloween 1909 in Clarksville, Tenn., Demetrius “Dee” Ewing would eventually become the first black businessman to own a store on Wabash Avenue in Terre Haute.
- Black History Month: ‘Doc’ Jones helped pave way in Valley, was a ‘pillar of the black community’ Winton D. “Doc” Jones was a pharmacist and businessman with a shop at 13th Street and College Avenue in Terre Haute for more than 50 years.
-
Black History Month: Indiana’s first black legislator attended Allen Chapel school
James S. Hinton, Indiana’s first black state legislator, was one of the earliest students at the original Allen Chapel school in Terre Haute.
The Allen Chapel school was a “subscription school,” meaning parents paid for their children to attend. The fee at the school was 25 cents per week, according to a publication by the Allen Chapel. - More Black History Month Headlines
Raw Video: NATO Protesters Face-off With Police
Mary Kennedy Mourned at Private Funeral in NY
Raw Video: Demonstrations Ahead of NATO Summit
Prosecutors: Trio Planned to Attack Obama's HQ
Obama Pushes for Post-2014 Vision for Afghanista
G-8 Seeks Unity on Euro-debt Crisis, Iran
NATO Chief: 'No Rush for Exits' in Afghanistan.
Libyan Convicted in Lockerbie Bombing Is Dead
Blind Chinese Activist Arrives in NY
Video Surfaces of Alleged Abuse at Kansas School
Raw Video: Powerful Quake in Northern Italy
G-8 Leaders Hope Greece Remains in Eurozone
Violence in Aleppo, Rastan Amid Observer Warning
Raw Video: Demonstrators Protest NATO
Police: 3 Face Terror Charges Ahead of NATO
Raw Video: Will Smith Slaps Kissing Reporter
Raw Video: G8 Leaders Gather for Class Photo
Raw Video: Obama Greets Leaders at Camp David
SpaceX President: 'This Is Not Failure'
Big Job: G-8 Tackles Euro Crisis
'Ring of Fire' solar eclipse as seen from Japan
ET's Last Interview with Robin Gibb
Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake Slams Italy
Wiig's Emotional SNL Sendoff
Bloodied anti-NATO protester
Bee Gees Singer Robin Gibb Dies
Facebook Founder Ties the Knot
Heat even up series with Pacers
The Dictator Overthrows Elisabetta
Anarchists Arrested at NATO Summit in Chicago
Transgender Beauty Rocks Bikini
Raw Video: Will Smith Slaps Journalist
Spurs rally, take 3-0 lead
Protesters in front of Emanuel's house
John Edwards trial: Main points jurors may be mulling
Facebook IPO underwhelms
Kate Middleton's Two Thousand Dollar Dress
Man Who Fathered 30 Kids Asks Judge for Child Support Break
Sebelius Heckled During Georgetown Speech
