Archie Cooley passes away at 84



Awwwwww coach is gone. :( Rest, coach Cooley. Really enjoyed talks here or there w/ him as he attempted to resurrect PQC early 2000s. He wasn't shy about asking us DFW-PV-folk for donations to help assist PQC.
 
Best line I ever heard describing a player’s abilities came from The Gunslinger, who famously said about Jerry Rice “He can catch a bb at midnight”. RIP, Coach!
 

Remembering ‘The Gunslinger’ of college football, Archie Cooley​


Archie “The Gunslinger” Cooley, the most unconventional of football coaches, has died at the age of 84, and, frankly, I don’t even know how to begin to describe him.

So let’s begin like this: There will never be another one. Cooley, which is how he referred to himself so often in the third person, was an original. In the mid-1980s, in Mississippi, he wrestled the college football spotlight away from Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Miss and Jackson State, his alma mater, and shined it ever so brightly on Mississippi Valley State.

He was a sports writer’s dream. Need a column? Call Cooley. He always delivered. He wore a cowboy hat, usually with a feather in it, and that hat covered a brain that was years and years ahead of all others when it came to offensive football.

Back when most college football teams were running “three-yards-and-cloud-of-dust” offenses, Cooley’s MVSU Delta Devils were spreading the field, never huddling, and throwing the ball on every down and then throwing it some more. The stuff you see big-time college and NFL offenses doing now, he was doing then.

The only thing the Valley Delta Devils had more of than passing plays were nicknames. Cooley was The Gunslinger. Jerry Rice was World, short for All World. Willie Totten, the quarterback, was Satellite. The offense was The Satellite Express. The offensive line was known as Tons of Fun. Vincent Brown, the great linebacker, was The Undertaker. Together, they were a blast.

mississippitoday.org

Remembering 'The Gunslinger' of college football, Archie Cooley

Columnist Rick Cleveland remembers Archie “The Gunslinger” Cooley, the most unconventional of football coaches, who died at the age of 84.
mississippitoday.org mississippitoday.org
 
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