Amy Cooper, University of St. Thomas senior athletic director and women’s administrator received the 2025 Wilma Rudolph Courage Award and was celebrated with other recipients on Feb. 5 at the Minnesota History Center.
The award is given to a woman athlete who overcame adversity and exhibits extraordinary courage in their athletic performance.
Cooper’s sports career started at Minneapolis Washburn High School where she competed in soccer, track and field, basketball, and swimming and diving. Cooper earned all-conference, all-metro and all-state honors with the soccer team.
In her senior year, Cooper was awarded the Athena Award, an accomplishment given to a senior female athlete who distinguished herself in special achievement in one or more sports.
“I was blessed that my parents just put me in sports right away. They recognized how much I loved to run, and I excelled early on in athletics. So I think for me, that was somewhere that I was comfortable, that I felt like I wasn’t judged for what I looked like or how I talked,” Cooper said.
Her career continued at Howard University where she became the first soccer player to earn all-conference honors at a Historically Black college or university (HBCU).
“And I was understood because I was an athlete, I was working hard and I was successful. And so for me, sports has always just come easy,” Cooper said.
After graduating from Howard, she helped start the first women’s soccer program when the Southwest Athletic Conference added women’s soccer, jumpstarting her coaching career.
"What I love the most is the interaction with student athletes. When you move out of the coaching role into administration, sometimes you don't get that same interaction anymore. However, for me, I have four teams here that I'm a sport administrator for, so I try to spend time at their practices. I go to their games, and I'm also the advisor for our Black student-athlete affinity group," Cooper said in an Minnesota Public Radio interview. "And those touchpoints give me that contact with student-athletes because I think, ultimately, we all want a purpose and we want to feel like we're making a difference."
However, during grad school, Cooper was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease. Yet, her passion for soccer was undefeated, and she continued to play in a semi-professional league in Houston.
Later, she was diagnosed with compartment leg syndrome, which causes muscle and nerve damage, and was eventually diagnosed with Stage 4 arthritis in both knees, ending her career in competitive soccer.
Despite not being able to play, her love for athletics never stopped.
“I was kind of in disbelief because I just never thought that would happen to me. But again, it's nothing new. My whole life I've pushed past the boundaries, and I have been authentic and just been me, and that's what I continue to do," Cooper said.
She went back to coaching for several years, traveling all over the United States. And in 2021, Cooper returned to Minnesota where she was hired as the senior associate athletic director for administration at the University of St. Thomas.
Cooper does not see her physical limitations as a reason to slow down, and prides herself on empowering individuals across gender, race and background to succeed in sports and beyond, according to the National Girls & Women in Sports Day Press Release.
"Don't let anybody tell you what your limitations are. You need to figure out your own limitations, and you need to work to push past those, just like you do every day on the field, on the court," Cooper said.
