Cynthia Cooper

Cooper didn't learn how to play basketball until the summer before she started high school. That spring she saw a girl in her junior high gym pass the ball around behind her back before making a layup and thought to herself that she'd like to be able to do that. Cooper pleaded with an acquaintance of hers who was also an assistant basketball coach at her future high school to teach her how to play. They met at the high school gym every day that summer, and by the fall Cooper was good enough to make the high school varsity team.

After joining her high school's starting lineup as a sophomore and leading them to the California girls' high school basketball championships in her senior year, in the fall of 1981 Cooper began attending the

Cynthia Cooper

University of Southern California (USC) on a basketball scholarship. Cooper, who prior to this had lived in poverty in the infamous Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, recalls in her autobiography that the culture shock she felt at the university was intense. Her success on the court helped her to adjust, but then in the fall of her junior year Cooper suffered a major setback: she was ruled ineligible to play on the team because of poor grades. Cooper brought her grades up, rejoined the team after the fall semester, and helped the Lady Trojans to win their second NCAA championship in two years.

Cooper's academic problems prevented her from playing again during her senior year, and in frustration she quit school early in 1985. Hoping to help her single-parent mother with the family's financial worries, Cooper found a job as a bank teller. Within months, she had been promoted to head teller, but Cooper missed basketball. She reenrolled at USC later in 1985. The team made it to the NCAA championships again that season, but lost the championship game to the University of Texas.