Cooper looking forward to junior season with Buckeyes

BARSTOW — Whitney Cooper is in Barstow working out six days a week preparring for her upcoming school year at Ohio State.

Cooper, who is entering her junior year this season as a Buckeye and will begin classes on Sept. 24, is running, weightlifting, and training diligently to compete for the starting position at shortstop she earned last season.

“It became my job, and playing softball became my one and only priority while I am away at school,” Cooper said. “I am always very, very, busy, but my time at Ohio State has been very fun,”

Cooper is motivated by losing her shortstop at Ohio State in 2006. It was a difficult transition to the NCAA Division I level.

In Cooper's first season with the Buckeyes, the former Barstow High School softball player had to overcome a number of mistakes on the field, including errors that forced her to lose her position as the starting shortstop.

“Throughout my career, I had never just been a player that sat on the bench,” Cooper said. “It was hard for me. I was the backup shortstop. I had never sat the bench, and I couldn't be on the field. I was going to work as hard as I could, and it wasn't going to change how I approached anything.”

Cooper made the best of the situation and won the Ohio State Buckeye Spirit Award, which is given out to the most inspirational players on the team.

During the time Cooper sat on the bench, she overcame adversity to win her starting position back last season.

Mother, Jackie, said has always had an impeccable work ethic. She said her daughter just continued to do her workout routine, a six-days-a-week regime focusing on weightlifting, running, and practices.

“She has really matured through her softball, and has gotten better in every aspect of her game," Jackie Cooper said. “When you enter college, you are just a kid. She is a young adult now and is doing well.”

Her mother Jackie attributes her ability to survive in the competitive Division I atmosphere to her desire to never give up.

“She pushes herself so hard, and she just never gives up,” Jackie said. “She will be out there and still working out.”

One lesson that Whitney said she learned is the ability to control her emotions when she makes an error, something she said she struggled with at the beginning at her time at Ohio State.

“Everything that I've ever did off-the-field always had to be perfect,” Whitney said. “Now I've learned that mistakes are going to happen and that I can't take everything so hard on myself. I learned that you can't even think about the last play. You have to continue to move forward, and not think about it.”

Whitney said she has aspirations to become a coach or a teaching assistant after she finishes school.

“She is a perfectionist," Jackie said. “I don't know where she gets it from. She has always wanted to do well, and has always worked hard at it. This is the attitude that you have to have, and she's got it.”

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(760) 256-4122 or jason_blasco@link.freedom.com