Mississippi State football’s 1980 season featured one of the biggest wins in school history.
In a game still remembered more than 40 years later, the Bulldogs knocked off No. 1 Alabama, the two-time defending champions, 6-3 in Jackson’s Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, ending the Crimson Tide’s 28-game winning streak.
At the heart of MSU’s upset was a linebacker who couldn’t be blocked that November day, or almost any day, in Johnie Cooks. Cooks finished the game with 20 tackles, according to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, highlighting one of the best careers in program history.
Cooks, the second overall pick in the 1982 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Colts, died Thursday morning at age 64.
Cooks, a Leland native, played for MSU from 1977-81, earning numerous accolades as one of college football’s best defensive players. On two occasions, 1980 and 1981, he was named a First Team All-Southeastern Conference player, and was named a Second Team All-American those same years.
Cooks, who also lettered in basketball and track, was also an Associated Press First-Team All-America and MSU Team MVP in 1981.
He finished his college career with 373 tackles and was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.
Sid Salter, chief communications officer at Mississippi State, was a classmate of Cooks’ in Starkville and covered him as a reporter at The Starkville Daily News in the 1980s.
“The first time I met Johnie was to do a column on him,” Salter told The Dispatch in a phone interview Friday. “I liked him, enjoyed his company, and he was funny.
“That’s what I am going to miss about Johnie. I knew how great of an athlete he was, but as good as he was between the lines, it was the man that I will miss,” he added. “He was a great guy, a real encourager to our student-athletes when we had young people who were angling towards bad choices. We always got them in a position to talk to Johnie because he would tell them what the pitfalls were.
“He really loved Mississippi State. He grew up in the Delta. Johnie had to make his opportunity. He wasn’t just thrilled to be in a position to play SEC football. He was thrilled to be in a position to get a college education. He was a real ambassador and advocate for Mississippi State.”
Cooks also had a desire to help others, which Anne Owen, a former Mississippi State student, remembers fondly.
Owen, who now teaches in Montgomery, Alabama, recalled an instance where Cooks took a student, who she said wasn’t well taken care of and in a wheelchair, back to his house, where Cooks bathed him, took him to get a haircut, bought him new clothes and a new wheelchair.
“It just spoke volumes about Johnie’s character and where his heart was,” Owen recalled. “That was just the kind of person he was and how much he cared about people.”
Cooks spent 10 years in the NFL from 1982-91, playing for the Colts, both in Baltimore and Indianapolis, as well as the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. In 128 games, Cooks tallied 347 solo tackles, 134 assisted tackles, four interceptions, two fumble recoveries and added 32 sacks.
Cooks won a Super Bowl with the Giants in 1990.
His No. 99 was inducted into Davis Wade Stadium’s Ring of Honor in 2011.
Justin Frommer is the Mississippi State sports reporter for The Dispatch.
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