Cynthia Cooper

That summer, Cooper tried out for the U.S. National women's basketball team. Three hundred players came to Colorado Springs at their own expense to compete with thirty invited athletes for twelve spots on the team. Of the three hundred walk-on players, only one made the final cut: Cooper. With the U.S. National team, Cooper made her second trip abroad (she had participated in the Jones Cup in Taiwan in the summer of 1981), competing in the Goodwill Games in Moscow and the World Championships in Vilnius, U.S.S.R. The U.S. team won both events.

Late in 1985, Cooper was offered a job playing in a professional league in Valencia, Spain, which she took eagerly. After playing there for a year, she was offered a spot on a team in the Italian league, which was more competitive and prestigious than the Spanish league. Cooper packed up and moved to Parma, Italy. She now describes the city as her second home, although language problems made playing on the Parma team difficult until she became fluent in Italian. Under Cooper's leadership, the Parma team became one of the dominant ones in the Italian league, and Cooper wound up playing there for the seven seasons. She left Parma to play for a Sicilian team for two seasons after that, but in 1996 she returned to Parma. This would be her final season playing in Europe: in 1997 the WNBA would open, and Cooper would finally get to play professional basketball on her home soil.