Cory Cooperman joined the Rutgers wrestling program on May 1, 2009.
Cooperman has played a vital role in the team’s rise in national prominence. He has aggressively recruited multiple highly touted prospects to wrestle “On the Banks.”
In Cooperman’s first season on staff, Rutgers finished at No. 22 in the final 2009-10 NWCA/USA Today Division I Team Coaches Poll after posting a 19-5-1 record. Seven Scarlet Knights earned NCAA bids, the most since 1960. The No. 22 ranking is the highest in school history. Nine of Rutgers 10 starters are returning for the 2010-11 campaign. The Scarlet Knights put together a 15-match unbeaten streak from early December to late February which was the longest streak in school history.
Cooperman, a former three-time All-American and three-time Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) champion at Lehigh, brings a wealth of wrestling experience to the staff.
He has spent the last three seasons as an assistant at Cornell, which has been nationally ranked each season and finished fifth in the nation at the 2009 NCAA Championships last month while holding a No. 2 national ranking for part of the season. Cooperman oversaw the Big Red’s recruiting efforts while primarily training the program’s light and middle weight wrestlers. With Cooperman on the staff, the program produced three EIWA and Ivy League team titles, 12 All-Americans and two National Champions.
“I feel we are getting one of the best young technicians and recruiters in the country,” said Goodale. “Cory has been a part of a winner and great teams wherever he has been at as a competitor at Blair Academy and Lehigh University and as a coach at Cornell. He is a New Jersey guy who understands how important this sport is to this state. This is another step in the right direction of what we are trying to accomplish at Rutgers and that is to wrestle and compete at a very high level.”
He was a standout wrestler at Lehigh, earning All-America honors in 2004, 2005 and 2006 while taking home the 141-pound weight class title at the EIWA Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2006. Cooperman was also crowned the Southern Scuffle champion in 2006 and was an alternate for the 2002 Junior World Team. During his senior season, he was profiled by MTV for the documentary “True Life: I’m on a diet.”
Scholastically, Cooperman attended wrestling powerhouse Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J. where he was a four-time Prep National Champion from 1999-2001. He was ranked as the No. 1 high school wrestler in the nation at 125 pounds and captained Blair Academy’s national championship team in 2001.
Cooperman resides in New Jersey with his wife Jacqueline.
