Cynthia Cooper-Dyke

Cynthia Lynne Cooper-Dyke (born April 14, 1963) is an American basketball coach and former player who has won championships at every level of competition: in high school, at Locke High School in Los Angeles, California; in college, at USC; in the Olympics; and in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She is considered to be one of the greatest female basketball players ever.

Career

Team USA Cooper was named to represent the US at the 1981 William Jones Cup competition in Taipei, Taiwan, while still in high school. The team won seven of eight games to win the silver medal for the event. Cooper scored 2.8 points per game and recorded nine steals. She was the only player that day to score 20+ points, thus making her the first player in WNBA history to have a 20-point game.

She led the league in scoring three consecutive years, leading the franchise to a record four WNBA Championships. In addition, she was voted the WNBA's MVP in 1997 and 1998 and named Most Valuable Player in each of those four WNBA Finals. On July 25, 1997, Cooper set the record for the most points scored by a first-year player when she scored 44 points against the Sacramento Monarchs. This record still stands 28 years later but it was tied by Dallas Wings rookie Paige Bueckers on August 20, 2025, when Bueckers recorded 44 points in an 80–81 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks. Many sources cite Bueckers as the "official" record holder for most points scored in a game by a rookie. This is because when Cooper set the record in 1997, it was the WNBA's inaugural season, so every player in the league was technically a "rookie" and many players (including Cooper) already had professional basketball experience from playing in other leagues.

Cooper was named the 1998 Sportswoman of the Year (in the team category) by the Women's Sports Foundation.

Cooper returned as an active player in the 2003 season and played only 4 games during that season with the Comets. Her appearance in the game on May 22, 2003, as a 40-year-old, made her the oldest player, at the time, to play in a WNBA game (later being broken by Nancy Lieberman-Cline who at 50 years old, played a game for the Detroit Shock on July 24, 2008).

Afterward, she served as a TV analyst and halftime reporter for the Houston Rockets of the NBA. Cooper has also been named one of the top 15 players in the WNBA at the 2011 WNBA All-Star game. During Game 1 of the 2016 WNBA Finals, she was named in the WNBA Top 20@20.

Career statistics

†Denotes seasons in which Cooper won a WNBA championshipWNBA record

Regular season

Playoffs

College coaching career

As a collegiate head coach, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke won 7 total NCAA conference championships. This includes 4 regular season titles and 3 conference tournament titles. Her championship breakdown by school features: Prairie View A&M (SWAC)3 Regular Season Championships: 2007, 2008, 2009 2 Tournament Championships: 2007, 2009 Texas Southern (SWAC)1 Regular Season Championship: 2013 USC (Pac-12)1 Tournament Championship: 2014

Prairie View A&M (2005–2010) In May 2005, Cooper was named the head coach of the women's basketball team at Prairie View A&M University. In her second season in 2006–07, Cooper-Dyke led the underdog Panthers to their first SWAC women's basketball tournament title and NCAA tournament appearance. Cooper-Dyke was named SWAC Coach of the Year for 2007.

In five seasons at Prairie View, Cooper-Dyke had a cumulative 86–72 record. Cooper-Dyke was the 2011 Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year, her third conference yearly honor of that sort. In her first season, Cooper-Dyke led USC to a 22–13 (11–7 Pac-12) season with an appearance in the 2014 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. On March 3, 2017, Cooper-Dyke resigned as head coach at USC, following a 14–16 season in 2016–17 and 70–56 overall record.

Second stint at Texas Southern (2019–2022) In April 2019, she returned to coach at Texas Southern. Texas Southern had a 20–10 record in her first season back but had two straight losing seasons afterwards at 5–10 and 11–15. She concluded her four seasons in two stints with a cumulative 56–47 record.

The Athletic reported on May 5, 2022, that Texas Southern opened a Title IX investigation into Cooper-Dyke over accusations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. A hearing had been scheduled for April 6 but was canceled due to Cooper-Dyke no longer being employed by the university. Additional allegations of similar misconduct were revealed from her previous coaching jobs at UNC Wilmington and USC.

Halls of Fame Cooper was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.

In 2000, she published her autobiography, entitled She Got Game: My Personal Odyssey, which covered her childhood, her basketball career up to that time, and her mother's battle with breast cancer.

Her first marriage was on July 30, 1993, to Anthony Stewart in San Antonio, Texas. On April 28, 2001, she married Brian Dyke. She acted as a surrogate mother to seven of her nieces and nephews and adopted her younger sister Lisa's son. She is a mother to twins