{"id":286727,"date":"2026-05-27T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286727\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T22:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:05:09","slug":"miami-hall-of-famer-gary-cooper-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286727\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Hall of Famer Gary Cooper Passes Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Miami University baseball player Gary Cooper passed away on Monday, May 25. He was 74 years old. Cooper was a four-year letterwinner from 1970-73 under coach Bud Middaugh.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nAs Miami University&#8217;s first baseball All-American, Cooper remains one of only 11 players in program history to earn the distinction. He was recognized as a CoSIDA Academic All-American and Academic All-District selection in both 1971 and 1972, while also earning Academic All-MAC honors in 1972 and 1973. A three-time All-MAC recipient, Cooper received first-team honors in 1972 as both a second baseman and pitcher, along with second-team honors in 1971 as a shortstop and again in 1973 as a second baseman and pitcher.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nIn his standout 1972 campaign, Cooper hit .421, which was a program record that stood for over 20 years and still ranks third-best in school history. That season, he also paced the conference in six offensive categories. Nicknamed &#8220;Coop,&#8221; he played a key role in leading Miami to its first MAC Championship in 1973, when the Red and White compiled a 14-4 conference record and finished the year ranked No. 14 nationally.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nDuring his four seasons with the program, Cooper helped guide the Red and White to an impressive 111-39 overall record. The team recorded a 32-10 mark in 1971 and never finished lower than third in the MAC during his career. Cooper was inducted into the Miami Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Miami University baseball player Gary Cooper passed away on Monday, May 25. He was 74 years old.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-286727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}