Samuel Cooper

Monday, August 24, 1998

Samuel Cooper

Original Steeler dies at age 89
Samuel V. Cooper, a member of the first Pittsburgh Steelers football team, died Saturday, August 22, 1998.

Mr. Cooper, 89, of Carnegie, played for one season on the new football team. The rest of his life was devoted to improving the lives of schoolchildren.
He died in Manor Care Nursing Home in Scott Township.
Mr. Cooper joined the Steelers in 1933 as a lineman. The Steelers were then known by the same name as the city's baseball team - the Pittsburgh Pirates.
When Mr. Cooper signed his contract, it stipulated he was to be paid $100 a game for the season.
"It was good money in those days," Cooper once said. Football was mostly experimental, it was the heart of the Depression and few knew if there would be any future to it.
The Pirates were in the Eastern Division along with the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Chicago Bears, the Portsmouth Spartans, Green Bay Packers, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cardinals made up the Western Division.
Teams traveled by train or bus. Cooper recalled one trip to Boston when the bus broke down five miles outside the city limits.
"The players got out and pushed the bus for the final five miles. When gametime rolled around, we were too tired for pre-game exercises," he said.
The Pirates football team ended its first season with a 3-6-2 record.
In addition to being on the first Steelers team, Cooper played for Geneva College against Duquesne in the first night game at Forbes Field in 1929. He also took part in the first North-South football game in Baltimore on December 10, 1932.
He was born February 1, 1909, in Nottingham Township, near Venetia, a son of Samuel Frederick and Frances Long Cooper.
He attended Monongahela High School for three years and graduated from Mars High School in 1929.
He graduated from Geneva College in 1935, where he was captain of the football team in 1932. In 1987, the Alumni Association of Geneva College awarded him the Distinguished Service Award for outstanding career achievement and a life of service.
He was named superintendent of the Washington County Juvenile Court home for boys in Old Concord in 1935.
He later served as principal and coached football and baseball at Morris Township High School.
He was employed by Chartiers Valley School District and later by North Hills School District as director of pupil services, transportation and adult education.
He retired in 1973 and moved to Waynesburg a year later. For many years, he operated a farm in Greene County.
In 1978, Cooper served as the crusade chairman of the Greene County unit of the American Cancer Society.
He also was active in the United Way, the American Red Cross and served as an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
On July 8, 1937, in Pittsburgh, he married Arnetta Elliott Cooper, who survives. The couple moved to Carnegie in 1991.
Also surviving are two daughters, Linda Giroski-Karnsr of Bridgeville and Cheryl McElhany of San Francisco, Calif.; a son, Fred Cooper of Scott Township; six grandchildren, Andy Giroski, Leanne Giroski, Nichole Elisabeth Giroski, Garrett Cooper, Sammy Cooper and Shane Cooper; and two great-grandchildren.
A sister, Mary C. Irwin, is deceased.
This obituary was written CHRISTIE CAMPBELL.