Jan. 6, 2006

By JASON VONDERSMITH
Portland Tribune

A respiratory virus slowed University of Portland basketball player Darren Cooper earlier this season, to where he could barely run up and down the court.

Forgive his mother for fearing the worst, because the worst has happened to her.

"I got really nervous, because he got really sick," Carrie Green says.

As Cooper has learned, cancer "can sneak up on you, and just like that, be in your life." Thank God, he says, it has not happened to him. Thank God, it has not taken his mother away.

Twenty-two, healthy and fit, Cooper could only stand by, strong and supportive, as the deadly disease ravaged his family.

In August 2001, his father succumbed to prostate and colon cancer. James Cooper never got the chance to watch his son, a 2001 Benson High grad, play college basketball on a scholarship at Eastern Washington University.

In March 2003, shortly after being diagnosed, Darren's beloved uncle and father figure died from brain cancer. Charles Green had bought Cooper's outfit for him for the Benson prom -- a stylish, cream-colored tuxedo and derby with an orange shirt.

Two months later, Darren's grandmother -- also named Carrie Green -- passed away at age 80. The health of the matriarch, a mother of eight, deteriorated after the death of her son.

Shortly after, in late June 2003, Cooper's mother sat down in their living room with him and his teenage sister, Darcus Grigsby. Sobbing, Carrie Green said she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and chemotherapy would start immediately.

She was the person who had taught Cooper how to play basketball.

Through it all, no one saw him cry. Just as he does on the court, Cooper stuck out his chin and got the job done, nursing his mother through chemotherapy and recovery that continues today.

"I definitely cried, but whenever I was in a public scene, I always wanted to give the impression that I was OK," he says. "I had to stay strong for others around me."

`I was fortunate and blessed'

Now cancer-free, Green, 51, had a breast removed. She has lost sensation in her toes, and has received shock therapy to try to wake them up -- "you never realize how important your toes are until you can't use them," she says. Numbness in her fingertips does not allow her to do many things, and she can't carry groceries because "my arms just give out at times."

She has to takes naps on the way home from work at Tektronix in Beaverton, stopping at her sister's house in Northeast Portland on the way to her apartment on Northeast 162nd Avenue.

"I don't want to fall asleep at the wheel," she says.

But, again, Cooper still has his mother around. He lovingly assists her. After kneeling by her Christmas tree, Green needs help up because she cannot get any push from her toes. Cooper helps her, smiling.

"She just takes one day at a time, and doesn't take anything for granted," he says. "She just lives each day to the fullest, like it's going to be her last. Realistically, we never know what's going to come our way."

A religious man, Cooper feels blessed to have his mother in his life.

"I cannot look at it any other way," he says. "A lot of families have been put into that situation, and they tend to lose everything. I was fortunate and blessed to get my mom back, and I love her very much.

"To have her be at every single game and have her cheer me on is very much a blessing."

Last season, she could barely stay awake at games, and had trouble sitting up for long periods.

And Green listens to all the road games. She doesn't get radio reception at her apartment, "so I usually ride around in the car and listen to the game." This week, after UP's heartbreaking loss at Montana State, Green had her sister relay the news over the telephone.

The hardest year

Cooper will never forget the year 2003. It changed his life forever. He had left for his second year at Eastern Washington in fall 2002, knowing his uncle's condition had been getting worse. The family was hurting, and he had left his heart in Portland. As he stepped off the plane in Spokane, Cooper knew he had to go back.

Cooper told coach Ray Giacoletti that he wanted to leave at the end of the term in December, but he was "still somewhat young and wasn't able to confront what was going on" with his uncle.

"Saying I wasn't happy, that's why they felt bitter and didn't want to give me my (scholarship) release. They felt I had been disloyal and up and left."

Eastern granted Cooper his release, and he returned home and started to attend classes at Portland Community College, only to experience what he calls "the domino effect" of family tragedy.

Undeterred, Cooper found a job to help out his family, working the full-time graveyard shift loading packages at United Parcel Service. "That was my first actual job," he says, adding, jokingly, "Nope, I didn't have to wear the brown and the little shorts and shirt."

He adds: "It was a good learning experience, to get into the real world. I'm glad I went through it."

He cared for his mother during the chemotherapy, June 2003 to January 2004 -- carrying her from the car to the apartment, cleaning up her vomit, making her meals, maintaining the house.

"That's the type of guy Coop is. He steps up and takes responsibilities," says teammate Donald Wilson, who, along with Pooh Jeter, lives with Cooper and helps out his mother, calling her "Mom."

Green also has anemia and a heart condition, and she slept on the couch during chemotherapy because she feared climbing the stairs would kill her. A heart attack had claimed the life of her brother-in-law, who also battled cancer, on the same day her brother had been diagnosed with cancer in 2001.

"It sucked the life out of me," Green says. "Some nights I went to sleep feeling like I wouldn't wake up."

"It was a sad time," says Darcus, a Benson High junior.

An angel on Earth

In November 2003, Cooper remembers, his mother could not get out of bed and could barely muster enough energy to eat and drink. She voiced a desire to die a couple of times, and "it was getting to my little sister," Cooper says. "I had to keep my mom positive."

This week, as he sat by her side with the Christmas tree lights glimmering, Green couldn't help thinking of her oldest child as an angel.

Coach Michael Holton cannot laud Cooper enough, especially after the young man paid his own way -- about $12,000 -- to attend UP in the winter and spring of 2004. He had received his associate of arts degree from PCC, and the Pilots offered him a scholarship starting in fall 2004. But Cooper wanted to acclimate himself to the team and school early.

"I told him, `I wouldn't advise you to do that,' " Holton says. "He said, `I'm advising myself to do it.' It stretched his family, but he was committed to doing it.

"It gives me chills thinking about what he did. We live in an entitlement era, especially with scholarship kids and ... he's so unique. Very few kids would leave a scholarship to come home and take care of family. Darren Cooper's experience, from my perspective, is in a class by itself."

Cooper will petition for another year
The University of Portland plans to appeal to the NCAA next month for another year of eligibility for Darren Cooper because he missed most of the 2002-03 season to return home for family reasons.

Coach Michael Holton hopes Eastern Washington, which granted his scholarship release in December 2002, will approve of the appeal. Holton says then-coach Ray Giacoletti told him in 2003 that Cooper leaving EWU "will come back to haunt him (Cooper)."

Cooper inquired about playing at UP while working a camp on the campus in summer of 2002, but Holton told him "that's not a conversation we can (legally) have. I could tell he liked it here. But he didn't leave (Eastern) to come here; we didn't have a scholarship."

Cooper played in one exhibition game for EWU during the 2002-03 season; this year, he has averaged 20 points in the last six games.

He says he wants to play another year of basketball. He will conclude his social justice degree, with a minor in drama, in spring 2006.

"I'm trying to get into film and directing. Making movies," he says. "It's something that has sparked a little energy in me."