Post by wtm97 on Nov 27, 2014 9:01:30 GMT -5
Bill Reynolds: By losing, PC coach Ed Cooley has won his life back
Published: November 25, 2014 09:41 PM
Stomach surgery has helped transform PC head coach Ed Cooley, who once weighed as much as 357 pounds.
breynold@providencejournal.com
You might think that the biggest life-changing experience in Ed Cooley’s life was becoming the Providence College basketball coach in the spring of 2011.
You would be wrong.
It was the weight-reduction surgery he had in the summer of 2013.
“Absolutely life-changing,” he said. “It totally re-thinks the way you live.”
It was Sunday afternoon and he was standing in one of the hallways behind the arena at Mohegan Sun. His Friars had just beaten Notre Dame in one of those early-season statement games, a game that promised many more good nights to come for PC in this new season, this team that’s better than many thought it was going to be.
But Cooley was talking about how the surgery has changed his life, one of those moments when he didn’t seem like the high-profile PC coach, but rather just a man who had battled a weight problem much of his life, and now is so thrilled to be in control of it.
“I remember when I was playing for the Edgewood Eagles in kids’ football and I was always trying to make weight,” he said.
Even when he was starring for Central High School, and later at Stonehill College, in the prime of his playing career, he was always trying to monitor his weight. And when the playing was over, it became more and more of an issue. No big surprise. To the point that Al Skinner, who gave him his first chance on a college staff at Boston College and always has been one of his mentors, constantly was on him about it.
As was his agent, Dennis Coleman.
In short, he had people concerned about him, not the least being his wife Nurys and his two teenage children.
And he was concerned about himself.
He knew what he looked like in the mirror. He knew what size his clothes were. He knew how tired and listless he often felt. He didn’t need a scale to know he was in rotten shape. Maybe more important, he knew he was hurting himself, that it wasn’t healthy for a middle-aged man to be lugging all that weight around. He says that, in many ways, he looked at it like he was an alcoholic who felt powerless in front of alcohol, something he had no control of.
And it wasn’t just the weight. He would have occasional bouts of vertigo. Maybe most of all, he had periods of time when he just felt lousy. As if he had his dream job, but his health was getting in the way of it. He had ballooned up to 357 pounds, a scary weight for a 44-year-old man, even at 6-foot-4.
So in the summer of 2013 he had stomach surgery, something he calls a “bariatric sleeve,” a procedure that reduced his stomach to roughly 25 percent of its previous capacity.
“It was a huge decision,” he said.
It also was a huge lifestyle change.
First and foremost he had to drastically change his eating habits. He went from 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day “when I was big,” to 1,500 to 1,800 now. He also had to learn to eat healthy, not just eat less. He also had to get on a serious exercise routine, to the point that the sight of Cooley running through the streets around PC is now a common sight.
“I feel amazing,” he said. “And I think I’m a better coach now because of it.”
And now he wants to spread the word, for isn’t that what great coaches do?
“I want to tell the story to help the people who feel paralyzed the way I felt paralyzed,” he said.
He paused a second.
“And this is the best thing I’ve done,” he continued. “It’s also the toughest thing I‘ve ever done, but I’m more healthy now than I’ve ever been. And I’m as focused now as I’ve ever been.”
There’s no over-estimating this, of course.
Being the PC basketball coach is an in-the-fishbowl job, a stressful one that requires a lot of energy. This is what this procedure has given him: new energy to go along with his new body.
He paused again, this kid who used to try to sneak into PC games through some side door in The Dunk. This man who never lets a day go by without thinking of the ragamuffin days of his South Providence childhood, and how far he’s come from those days.
This is just one of the things that makes Cooley so unique as the Providence College coach, this sense that this is his dream job in ways it probably wouldn’t be for most others on the coaching fast track. This is not viewed as a stepping stone to some place where the lights burn brighter.
This is home.
This is where his heart is.
And his memories, too.
And now Cooley feels as good as he did when he first started out on this incredible journey 26 years ago, this journey that now has him in the best shape of his adult life and a team ranked in the top 25.