Condolences to Ed Cooley and Family with the Passing of His Mother

Cooley’s mother taught him through her struggles

The mother of Ed Cooley has passed away and it cannot be an easy time for the head coach of your Georgetown Hoyas. Cooley grew up in South Providence and was the eighth of nine children of Jane Cooley. Based on interviews, Cooley’s family struggled. His mother, who was on welfare, was frequently overwhelmed, so Cooley looked to his neighbors for food and direction. Through it all, Ed Cooley says that his mother taught him so much through her struggles. With her passing and rehearing Ed Cooley’s journey, basketball fans are reminded of the resiliency life often requires. We all send our deepest condolences to the Cooley family.

Cooley grew up on Elma Street, the eighth of nine children raised by his mother. Jane Cooley had her first child at just 14 years old, and the family often struggled to make ends meet. In a 2011 article form the Hartford Courant, Cooley described a childhood marked by scarcity, where meals were often meager and his mother, though caring, was overwhelmed by the demands of raising so many children.

“It wasn’t that my ma didn’t care,” Cooley explained, “it wasn’t that she didn’t worry, it was just that she was overwhelmed with eight kids at a young age. That’s a lot of babies.”

Life on Elma Street was tough. As detailed in The Athletic, Cooley’s older brother was incarcerated, and one of his sisters turned to prostitution. These experiences, coupled with the daily struggles of poverty, led the young Cooley to seek stability elsewhere.

At the age of nine, he began spending more and more time with the Searight family, neighbors who lived just a short walk away from Elma on Sassafras Street. As Andy Katz reported in 2011, “Cooley needed a stable home, a place where he could count on a meal. He said that wasn’t the case at his house.”

The Searights, Gloria and Eddie, provided Cooley with the structure and support he craved. Cooley played little league with their son. The Searights welcomed him into their home, offering him not just food and shelter, but also guidance and a sense of belonging. In a Connecticut Post article from 2011, Cooley recalled the simple act of going to Burger King with the Searights and being told he could order anything he wanted. “I just felt like I belonged here,” he said.

The Searights’ influence was profound. They instilled in Cooley the importance of academic integrity and family values, providing him with a foundation upon which to build his future. While he found stability with the Searights, Cooley maintained a relationship with his biological mother. He told the Hartford Courant that he has an “unbelievable relationship” with her and that she understood his need for the Searights’ support.

Cooley’s story is a testament to the power of resilience and the importance of community. He rose from humble beginnings, overcoming challenges that would have daunted many. With the support of his mother, the Searights, and his coaching mentors, Cooley forged his own path, ultimately returning to Providence and then Georgetown. His journey is a powerful reminder that even in the face of adversity, dreams can be realized.

Here are some links about Ed Cooley’s family:

Celebrating Skyhawk History Maker Ed Cooley ‘94 | Stonehill College

Who are the people, either from world history or your own personal history, that have had the biggest impact on your life? How did they impact you?

My mother Jane Cooley taught me so much. I learned through her struggles. Gloria and Ed Searight (Cooley’s childhood neighbors) provided a foundation of academic integrity and family values. And Al Skinner (formerly Cooley’s boss and the head coach of the Boston College Eagles men’s basketball team) gave me the opportunity to get into coaching.

Ed Cooley needed a change. But can he bring change to Georgetown? | The Athletic

Sitting in a conference room where remnants from the preceding coach’s tenure stand like Stonehenge – ridiculously oversized gray leather chairs that make ordinary people look like toddlers at the adult table – Cooley knows people want an explanation. And he has one. It’s just not the profound monologue they might be searching for.

Cooley opens his hands wide, raises his eyebrows and shrugs. “I needed a change,’’ he says.

From 14 Elma St., take a quick left on Broad, a right on Sassafras and head to the end of the block, to 117. Not even a half mile between the two, and yet this served as the entire world for Ed Cooley. Elma is where he lived, where his mother, Jane, did her best to raise nine kids on her own. Sassafras is where he was raised, where the Searight family took him in, fed him and showed him a way out.

He eventually left – for college, for assistant coaching jobs, his first head-coaching gig and then his second – but in a peripatetic profession, Cooley did the impossible. He climbed up the ladder yet never really left his base. A job at Fairfield gave him his longest commute, a mere 120 miles away. And then, of course, he came back: the Providence son in charge of Providence College. The boy from Elma Street, who meandered his way down Broad dreaming big dreams, grabbed the brass ring. “I’m not looking to win and go someplace else,’’ he said then, in 2011. “I’m happy where I’m at. I’m home.’’

Cooley, wearing a Georgetown T-shirt, recalls that vow now and winces. “Never use the word ‘never,’’’ he says. “Never is forever and that would be the mistake I made. Never comes back to haunt you.’’

It’s not that he didn’t mean it. He did. What he didn’t account for is that 41-year-old Ed Cooley might not want the same thing as 54-year-old Ed Cooley. There can be true joy in living in the same city you’ve known your whole life, reconnecting with childhood mentors and friends, visiting old haunts and eating at favorite restaurants. Yet there can also be, especially as a person ages, the existential terror of, Is this all there is? Should I do more? Want more?

Cooley grabs chance to sprint home | Connecticut Post

The kid would climb aboard the bus at the corner of Elma Street and take it about four miles to the corner of Eaton Street, where the Providence College campus starts. From there, the kid and his buddies would race up the hill toward the Peterson Recreation Center, where they would circle around the building until someone found an open door.

The boys would then sneak past the college kids on the treadmills and free weights to the darkened Alumni Hall gym, where they would shoot baskets until a security guard came and kicked them out.

The kid was Ed Cooley, the eighth of nine children to Jane Cooley, a single mom who tried her best to take care of her kids but would occasionally get overwhelmed. How tough was it? When Ed was 9, he basically left and lived with his friend and Little League teammate Eddie Seawright for the next 10 years. That was after one of his older brothers was sent to jail and one of his older sisters had become a prostitute.

The streets of South Providence were hard. Crime, poverty and drugs were always around. It was that way at 14 Elma St., where Cooley’s biological family lived, and at 117 Sassafras St., where the Seawrights lived.

And if he wasn’t at the Seawrights, you’d probably find Cooley shooting baskets in Alumni Hall.

Ed Cooley returns home to Providence — college basketball | ESPN.com

Cooley was one of nine children in a family of a mother on welfare. She did what she could, but clearly Cooley felt even before he was 10 years old that he needed to seek help.

He doesn’t speak disparagingly about his biological mother, Jane Cooley, or his father, Edward Smith, who was rarely around for his kids. But if it weren’t for seeking refuge at the Searight house after befriending sons Eddie Jr. and Corey, then he might not be who is he today, let alone where he is as the new coach at Providence College.

“He was playing baseball with my oldest son,” said Eddie Searight, standing in the driveway of his home. “My wife always liked to help people. That was the way she was. That’s the way my mother was.”

Cooley needed a stable home, a place where he could count on a meal. He said that wasn’t the case at his house. The Searights were working class folks who didn’t mind finding more to give to another mouth.

“A meal every day changed everything for him,” Eddie Searight said. “We were going to take him in, so we took him in.”

“I remember going to Burger King with them once and Mr. Searight told me I could order whatever I wanted to, don’t be afraid,” Cooley said. “I just felt like I belonged here.”

And he essentially has never left. He would stay countless nights at the Searights, just a few blocks from his house on Elma Street. There is nothing at that spot on Elma anymore, save a vacant lot that is flush with overgrown weeds and brush.

“I still see my bedroom and the stairs,” Cooley said, pointing to an open area.

THE HUNGRY KID IS TASTING SUCCESS – Hartford Courant | Hartford Courant

He was the eighth of nine children born to Jane Cooley, who had her first child when she was 14. One of Cooley’s sisters died before he was born.

He and his siblings shared a house and scrapped for what food was available, which often meant peanut butter sandwiches or corn flakes with water instead of milk or sugar.

There was seldom enough for everyone.

“It wasn’t that my ma didn’t care, it wasn’t that she didn’t worry, it was just that she was overwhelmed with eight kids at a young age,” Cooley said. “That’s a lot of babies.”

Cooley, 37, has a wide-open face, the kind that would make him an easy mark in a poker game, and it tensed a little as he talked about his first home.

“When I tell the story I feel bad because there is really no way to make my siblings part of what I have become,” Cooley said. “I had a sister who was a prostitute and an older brother in prison and I just couldn’t deal with it.

“I needed something totally different because I wanted to be something. What did I want to be? I didn’t know at that early age. When I met the Searights, they helped me build a foundation.” …

Cooley says he couldn’t have imagined it all back when he was 6 and hunting for food in the bare cupboards of his childhood home. And yet, he doesn’t hold grudges.

“I have an unbelievable relationship with my [biological] mother,” Cooley said. “I asked her if it bothered her that I call Gloria ‘Mom’ and she said, ‘It does sometimes, but I can see where you are coming from.”‘

Cooley was 13 before he met his biological father.

“My father, I look at it as he lost out,” Cooley said. “He was married when he had me so he may have been hiding in the bushes trying to be Johnny the slick guy, or what have you. But I don’t have anything against him.”