Hall of Fame
From the time she stepped on the Lamade Gym floor, Andrea Cooper was as dynamic a player as the women's basketball program ever had. By the time she finished her career, 97 starts later, she was in the top 10 in school history in games played, 3-pointers made (116, third), blocked shots (115, third), points (1,148, sixth), 3-point field goal percentage (.314, eighth), free throws made (208, eighth), rebounds (503, eighth) and assists (190, 10th). The 5-10 forward from Hollidaysburg, Pa., was instantly one of the team's top players, leading the team in scoring and blocked shots in each of her four seasons. As a freshman, she finished in the top five in the Freedom Conference in both 3-point field goal percentage (.349, fourth) and blocked shots (1.58, third). By her junior year, she had developed into one of the most versatile players in the conference, finishing eighth in the league in scoring (11.0), sixth in 3-point field goal percentage (.323) and second in blocked shots (1.13), as she became the first player at Lycoming to earn First Team All-Commonwealth Conference honors. In 2008-09, she broke the school record for blocked shots in a game, swatting seven against Delaware Valley, and she became the eighth player in school history to cross 1,000 career points and the first since Lyndy LeVan crossed the plateau in 2002. Cooper wrapped up her career by earning Second Team All-Commonwealth Conference honors. Her father, Tim, was there for all of her 97 games played, a mark that is fourth in program history. A three-time member of the MAC Academic Honor Roll, Cooper is an occupational therapist at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Harrisburg, Pa., serving as one of three lead therapists in the Comprehensive Stroke Center. After Lycoming, she earned a Master of Occupational Therapy degree from St. Francis (Pa.) in 2011, where she was voted the Most Outstanding Occupational Therapy Student by her classmates and she won the School of Health Sciences Research award for her Master's thesis: "Fear of Falling in Rural Community Dwelling Well-Elderly." After graduating from St. Francis, she also spent two years as an assistant girls' varsity basketball coach at Hershey High School. She and her husband, Ben '09, welcomed their first daughter, Ava, on Dec. 11.
