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For Cooks to leave Notre Dame, the lure of home tugged at him hard
Leaving job as wide receivers coach at Notre Dame for the same position at Oklahoma might not have immediately seemed to make much sense.
But for Kerry Cooks, it got him a lot closer to home.
He hadn't really been anywhere close since he left his hometown of Irving, Texas, to play football at Iowa. A coaching odyssey that included four stops before he spent the past years at South Bend made it difficult for him to ever get home.
Cooks wasn't seeking a move, but when Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops called after letting go of several coaches on his staff, Cooks knew it was time.
OU's campus in Norman is less than a three hour drive to Irving.
“I haven’t been home since I was 18," Cooks told The Oklahoman. “I’ve been very fortunate to coach at some tremendous places under some tremendous coaches. But one of the major moves for me was location. My mom’s getting older. I’ve got two girls. They see their grandparents twice a year right now. So that was one reason why."
Once he arrived at Oklahoma, Cooks greeted his new players with the number "114" written on a sheet of paper. He put it on the projector in the meeting room for all of them to see.
What did 114 mean?
"That's what you guys finished in pass defense this past year," Cooks said. "We attacked that right off the get-go."
(h/t The Oklahoman)
Photo Credit: Scout
