Blue White Illustrated

derstand the moment, or maybe he just wanted to hear his dad talk about baseball. Either way, he stood there and listened intently. Jake and Tyson have quickly become part of the team as they've strived to ac- climate to a new area and school and make new friends. That's particularly important for Cooper, who spoke at length last season about the difficult transition that families sometimes go through when coaches ac- cept a job at a new school. Players, too, have embraced the family atmosphere. "It's a lot of fun having Tyson and Jake here every day," senior infielder Taylor Skerpon said. "I think [Cooper] definitely feels a lot more at home, being with them every day and having them at the ballpark. We enjoy having them around all the time, too." The middle game against Illini proved both challenging and rewarding. Illinois won, 4-2, but only after 15 innings, and Penn State bounced back from an early 4-0 deficit the next day to close to within two runs in the seventh inning, although the Nittany Lions went on to lose, 6-3. Cooper's approach to the game has been consistent. "He just wants us to go out and play hard," said redshirt junior out- fielder Greg Guers, whose eight home runs this season made up half of the team's total. "He made that pretty clear last year in the first team meeting, and it hasn't changed one bit. Like today and yesterday, we played hard and he's proud of us, how we competed every inning. We played with them, and they're one of the best teams in the country." In the week following the series against the Illini, the Nittany Lions edged Pitt, 8-7, on an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth and took three games from Rutgers for their first Big Ten sweep in three years. Penn State finished its season with an 18- 30 overall record and a 6-16 mark in Big Ten play. That record included a five-game win- ning streak during the season's last month, and four of those wins came in front of sizeable home crowds. Penn State drew more than 1,000 fans in six of its last seven games, attendance gains that co- incided with exhaustive outreach efforts. Cooper and the team have connected with students, alumni and the community, with the series finale against Illinois serving as Four Diamonds Day. Per tradition, Cooper and the team had their heads shaved after the game to benefit the or- ganization. Earlier in the season, Cooper participated in a marketing effort by a student group, posing with students at the HUB. And during the first month of the season, Cooper and the team met with Penn State Alumni Association chapters in Virginia and South Carolina. Cooper played and coached at Miami (Fla.), a national power in baseball. It was there that he learned many of the specifics of program-building, how it involves so much more than what happens on the field. In late April, Miami unveiled a statue of former coach Ron Fraser. Cooper called Fraser "a master marketer and promoter" and also mentioned Tulane coach Rick Jones, who Cooper said "came out of the same cloth" as Fraser. Cooper worked with Jones for two years, serving as Tu- lane's hitting coach, and he also boasts international head coaching experience. Shortly after accepting his position at Penn State in August 2013, Cooper led Team USA to a gold medal during an 18- and-under tournament in Taiwan. In other words, Cooper knows what it takes to win and build a program. On-field performance is crucial, but what he's trying to do at Penn State involves so much more, he said. That's why he's trying to get as many facets of the university community as possible invested in the team's progress and success. "It helps recruiting when you reach out to alums, because I'm a big believer that there's power in numbers," Cooper said, "and when our guys realize that they're part of this unbelievable alumni base and family here at Penn State, I think it makes them play better." ■

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