UPTOWN — In February, Truman College's Head Basketball Coach John Cooksey took a trip down memory lane, heading southwest to his alma mater Webster University to be inducted into its Hall of Fame.
As he swiveled behind his desk in Truman's Business Department Thursday, the formerly dominant Webster player who now finds more pride in his coaching and teaching said he can barely remember any highlights from his playing days in St. Louis in the early '90s that led to the honor. What he does remember is the disappointment of the final buzzer signaling the end of his playing days, the camaraderie he enjoyed with his teammates and the accomplishments he's achieved since leaving the game.
But his proudest achievements hang around his now-blank dry-erase board.
"That's my wall of fame," Cooksey said, glancing at the 10 framed photos of athletes in various college basketball uniforms. "All the bachelor's degrees from Kaskaskia College. I'm hoping to get a couple photos up there of Truman guys this year. I've got a couple wrapping up."
Cooksey has spent the last five years coaching at Truman, and before that spent nine years coaching at Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Ill. Both colleges share the same hurdle for adding players to the wall: They only offer associate's degrees, which means his mentoring can't end after his players' final buzzer.
This year, he hopes to add at least two more former athletes to the wall.
"They lived their dream of playing college basketball at a high level, but [the degree is] what matters," he said.
During his playing career, he nearly averaged a double-double, tallying 18.4 points and 9.3 rebounds per game over three seasons at Webster.
Two decades later, his focus is geared more toward the journey to success than the statistics attached to it. That has become more evident to Cooksey as he wraps up postseason interviews after this season's 2-29 record, which he described as a "rough year."
"We had a few games we legitimately could’ve pulled out and some that we got thumped and it just wasn’t going to happen," he said. "I wasn’t burned out or secretly wishing it would end. I had good guys and they continued to learn stuff. They went through a lot of adversity.
"I still genuinely care about what happens to them [and] I think they feel the same way about Truman and the program. That speaks highly to their character. We’ll get there. We’ll get a few more wins."
Adversity is far from alien in Cooksey's journey. He began his career at Illinois Wesleyan and "did all the normal things that dumb college freshmen do — a little too much fun and not enough school," he said. After his freshman year, he transferred to the Merimac Campus of St. Louis Community College, putting his hoop dreams on hold as he "got straightened out academically" and "slung pasta for the Olive Garden."
Cooksey met Webster University coach Dennis Beckett at the laundromat in his building. Beckett asked him about playing at Webster University — which at the time didn't even have a gym but instead played at a local high school — after noticing him wearing an Illinois Wesleyan basketball T-shirt. And the rest was pretty much forgotten history, he said, until he returned to campus this year for the Hall of Fame induction.
"We didn’t know exactly what was going on when we were in the middle of it. We were kind of at the start of what the athletic program has grown into. That’s a sense of pride," he said. "My first year there, we played at Webster Grove’s High School because our facility was being built. You think back and it's such a weird thing to be like, we didn’t even have a home court. And the next year we moved into Grant Gymnasium, where they play today."
His stats reveal he was quite the versatile 6-foot-6-inch forward, who on the offensive end could score inside and stretch the floor with the 3-point shot. He finished his career fifth in all-time points at the school, fourth in free throws, third in total field goals and third in field goal percentage.
"That’s all the stuff that is fun to see and look back on. Things like that don’t happen without my coach giving me a pretty good green light to offensively put up those kind of numbers. When you get to shoot a lot, it helps," he said.
He was no slacker on the defensive end either. He grabbed more than 600 rebounds in his career and finished second all-time in rebounds at the school. He also averaged about 1.3 blocks per game, helping him finish as the school's leading shot blocker, which he found much harder to explain.
"That’s kind of funny that that’s the one thing that kind of sticks out," Cooksey said after a long pause. "I don’t know how that happened. It’s not like I was a great jumper. Good positioning. I don't know. Whatever works."
When talking statistics and records "I don't know" is a common theme for Cooksey. They seem more of an afterthought than adjectives for his career in a sport that's often dominated by numbers. Life has eroded the allure of records. He doesn't describe them as "pretty cool," the way he described his twin daughters dressed in cheerleading uniforms for the induction ceremony.
"It’s not like we’re talking about playing Fontbonne or whatever. You talk more about your family or your kids or what you’re doing. It’s a cool thing and it’s extremely humbling," he said.
Instead, the induction night forced him to reflect on the coaches and family that helped along the journey that landed him at three colleges, earned him two degrees and made him a family man hoping to add his children's degrees to his list of successes. And he's not just talking about his daughters Annabelle and Emma.
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