{"id":14137,"date":"2025-12-01T16:09:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=14137"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:59:15","slug":"embracing-life-as-an-auggie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2025\/12\/01\/embracing-life-as-an-auggie\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing life as an Auggie"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Woman
Augsburg Athletic Director Amy Cooper<\/strong> (Photo by Cary Percy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Amy Cooper<\/strong> started her role as Augsburg athletic director on June 1, she knew she had a lot to learn\u2014although not about the NCAA, student-athletes, or sport administration. She gained that experience throughout her time as senior associate athletics director at the University of St. Thomas, associate athletic director of administration at Howard University, director of athletics at Trinity Washington University, and in coaching roles at South Carolina State University, Southwest Minnesota State University, and Prairie View A&M University.<\/p>\n

While she championed the Augsburg mission, Cooper still had a lot to learn about being an Auggie herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the type of person who has to get in, dig in, and see what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cI can lead better when I fully understand everything, and I\u2019ve been doing a lot of learning.\u201d Her Augsburg experience has involved a lot of time on the operations side of Auggie Athletics to see how everything functions together.<\/p>\n

The biggest surprise, she said, was how familiar Augsburg student-athletes felt to her. \u201cI\u2019ve been surprised by the connection that I feel like I already have with our student-athletes. I feel like I\u2019ve known them for a long time. They\u2019re always speaking, saying hello, being polite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Student-athletes have provided Cooper with a warm welcome to campus, forming connections early on. (Photo by Courtney Perry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cooper has also been learning about the array of responsibilities Augsburg student-athletes juggle. Beyond coursework and practice schedules, many of them have jobs and other extracurricular commitments. She has worked to emphasize the importance of balance, for both the students and the coaches. \u201cThat\u2019s what the Division III model is about, making sure student-athletes have an opportunity to do a lot of different things,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a cross-country runner in band and a hockey player in the choir. When Mohammad Bati ’26<\/strong> won the MIAC cross country championship for the fourth time, I know he went to work later that day. I was shocked to hear how many students we have participating in different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

To supplement that balance, Cooper said it\u2019s important to celebrate classroom accomplishments alongside athletic achievements. Earlier this month, on National First-Generation College Celebration Day, Augsburg Athletics recognized the first-generation student-athletes\u2014both on the football field during a game against Gustavus Adolphus College and on the volleyball court during a game against St. Mary\u2019s University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s so important to do our best to make sure student-athletes are having a great experience at Augsburg in general. They only have four years for it. I want them to live it up before the real world comes,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

\"People
Cooper joins A-Club members for a watch party during the 2025 Homecoming football game. (Photo by Courtney Perry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have been plenty of great experiences during the Fall 2025 athletics season: men\u2019s wrestling has ranked number one in the nation, women\u2019s hockey number two, men\u2019s soccer number three, and Bati has experienced tremendous success in cross country. Cooper described the excitement of hosting a semifinals sendoff for the women\u2019s soccer team, when they advanced in the MIAC tournament on November 6.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s goals for the future? \u201cI want to keep going. It\u2019s been years of building up to this point for these teams to have this success. We\u2019ve got a lot of other teams working hard to get there. My job now is to bolster and support our coaches and student-athletes as much as possible to add to that success.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Top image: Amy Cooper<\/strong> began her journey at Augsburg on June 1, 2025, serving as athletic director. (Photo by Cary Percy)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Amy Cooper started her role as Augsburg athletic director on June 1, she knew she had a lot to learn\u2014although not about the NCAA, student-athletes, or sport administration. She gained that experience throughout her time as senior associate athletics director at the University of St. Thomas, associate athletic director of administration at Howard University, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":569,"featured_media":14186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight"],"wps_subtitle":"With first-hand knowledge of NCAA athletics, Athletic Director Amy Cooper brings both expertise and determination to learn what being an Auggie is all about.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/569"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14137"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14183,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14137\/revisions\/14183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}