Nimble journeyman Levi Cooper isn't your average heavyweight.
The 20-year-old redshirt sophomore from Hubbard, Ore., is now at his third school in as many years and his first season with the Sun Devils after walking on at the beginning of the year.
“It’s had its positives and its negatives,” Cooper said of his journey. “I took a chance on myself to come down here. I was like, well, I think I’m good enough to compete with these guys, and so if I need to prove to everyone in the world that I’m good enough to do it, then I will.”
Cooper has proved quite a bit so far and now finds himself with a bulls-eye on his back heading into the Pac-10 tournament on Feb. 27 in Corvallis, Ore.
This season has been a whirlwind for Cooper, who is pleasantly surprised at the large amount of success he has had in his short time here in Tempe.
“I basically recruited myself down here," Cooper said. "I didn’t even talk to [ASU] coach [Shawn] Charles or meet him one time before I got here; I just picked all my stuff up and moved down here. It was a big gamble."
Cooper finds himself finally comfortable here at ASU after cuts to the wrestling programs at Portland St. and Cal State Bakersfield sent him packing. The heavyweight spent a year at both schools before they did away with their wrestling teams in the wake of the economic recession, leaving Cooper in limbo for a place to showcase his talents.
“Not a lot of people were really interested in me at all, actually,” Cooper said of his situation after CS Bakersfield's program was slated to be cut last year. “It felt like there was a black cloud following me around. I couldn’t catch a break."
With little interest in him from other schools at the end of last year, Cooper took a chance and moved out to Arizona when he heard that ASU's squad was lacking depth at the heavyweight position. He enrolled himself at ASU and showed up to walk-on the team in the fall, an unknown to the rest of the Sun Devil squad.
Cooper has come a long way from that fateful day.
"To be honest, they said we had some heavyweight transferring in this year, and I had no idea who he was," redshirt senior captain Anthony Robles said. “He’s really come a long way from the beginning of the season. He’s been beating some ranked guys lately, and it seems like he’s getting on a roll now.”
Cooper's gamble to come to ASU has paid off so far, even though as a walk-on he receives no scholarship money from the Sun Devils.
“Being a Division I All-American is my dream, so I was willing to pay the money to fulfill that dream," Cooper said.
Cooper's laid-back persona has meshed well with his teammates, as he has grown close to the guys who were strangers to him as recently as August.
“Instead of being on edge the whole time, he jokes around a little bit," junior Jake Meredith said. "He has a good personality and he fits in well with the team.”
Cooper's popularity with his teammates can be partially credited to his dependability out on the mat.
He has posted a 22-8 record on the year, as most of his opponents struggle against a heavyweight that is light on his feet and quick to pile up points.
“My mindset is to just score as much as I possibly can, because I know that if I score six or more points, my chances of winning skyrocket," Cooper said. “I grew up wrestling around little guys, and wrestling with little guys. I never had a big guy to just lean against; they were always moving so I had to move too. That’s the style that I developed growing up because I didn’t have a choice to wrestle another way."
Despite his relative newness to the program, Cooper has gained the respect of his teammates and the coaching staff alike with his work ethic and toughness.
“He’s always pushing it hard in the practice room and trying to motivate the other guys,” junior Te Edwards said. “He definitely takes an underlying leadership role on the team.”
Cooper’s refusal to be complacent with his success thus far coupled with his desire to get better with each passing day are traits that are not lost on his teammates.
“You see continuous improvement with him,” Robles said. “No matter what, he’s going to bust his butt out there.”
Meredith agreed with Robles' sentiments, saying that despite his happy-go-lucky mannerisms, Cooper is all business when he steps out onto the mat.
“When it comes down to it, he gets pretty serious,” Meredith said.
That seriousness is not lost when it comes to finishing off his surprising season with a Pac-10 title and a run in the national tournament, something he never could have imagined nearly a year ago when he was a journeyman heavyweight without so much as a school to wrestle at.
“I didn’t expect this level of success this early, but obviously the gamble paid off," Cooper said. "Now I’m ranked in the top 20 in the country in a few different polls and I have a good opportunity to win the Pac-10 Championship next weekend. Making that investment and taking that chance on myself really paid off for me.”
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
