University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2026: Tenna Cooper
10/14/2026 12:00:00 PM | Athletics, Women's Basketball
The third in a five-part series on the UL Athletics Hall of Fame Class; Thursday - Dylan Moore
By the numbers, Tenna Cooper ranks as one of the greatest to ever wear a UL women's basketball jersey.
She's the Ragin' Cajuns' all-time career rebound leader, she's the second-most accurate shooter in the history of the program and ranks seventh in school history in scoring, all despite her collegiate career ending almost four decades ago.
Imagine what she would have accomplished if Ross Cook had let her play under the basket her whole career. But the Cajun coach had bigger plans, and had the perfect player to run his high-post offense.
"Players like her are program builders," said Cook, who coached the Cajuns in the first three years of Cooper's career. "She could do all the little things on both ends of the floor, and then you realize she's 6-foot-3 and can run and pass, and with a basketball IQ that was off the charts."
Cooper was a transitional player who helped lead the Cajuns through uncharted waters and conference changes. In fact, she's one of the few in UL history to earn all-conference honors in two different leagues – the Southland Conference where she was a first-team pick as a junior in 1987, and the fledgling American South Conference where she took those honors in 1988 despite playing alongside a mercurial freshman talent that would go on to become the greatest player in Cajun history.
"She had a quality of character you don't see in the stat line," Cook said. "She had that, but she could also fill the stat box if that's what we needed. We had a lot of people that could score a lot of points, including her, but she was the reason that people scored those points. She made everybody around her better."
Because of that, Cooper will be inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 16, as part of a weekend of Hall of Fame activities that includes the Cajuns' fourth home game of the season against Troy on Saturday, Oct. 17. She will be inducted along with baseball standout Dylan Moore, three-time All-American triple jumper Lawrence Willis, football standout Fred Stamps and former Cajun football coach Nelson Stokley at the Friday night ceremony.
Tickets for the induction to be held at the McElligott Club at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium are available from the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation at RCAF@louisiana.edu or by calling (337) 851-7223.
Almost 40 years after her final game, Cooper remains UL's all-time rebounding leader with 1,082, and nobody has come within 100 rebounds of that total in that time. She also ranked second in program history in scoring at the end of her career, and still ranks seventh on that list with 1,358 points, making her the only Cajun ever with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.
She also shot 56.1 percent from the floor in her career and still holds the record for single-game shooting with a 10-for-10 floor effort against Rice in 1988 – a year that she shot 61.8 percent from the field.
That season, Cooper accepted a leadership charge from Cook that he said made great moments possible over the next few years when Kim Perrot joined the program and began her legendary career.
"We had one of the best players that's ever played the game out at the point," Cook said. "Tenna would come to me and say she's a freshman that's turning the ball over too much. I told her I know you can handle what I'm about to tell you, you're looking at one of the best players in America but she's not yet. I'm going to let her go, let her play wild and loose for a while and I'm asking you to understand what I'm doing.
"I told her she had to go to Kim and tell her where the two of your can do more, where you score best, where you need to get the ball. I wasn't going to squeeze her game at that point, that would come later, but Tenna as older and very intelligent player, I let her find out what's best for her and how she was going to improve because of her."
That season capped a stellar career for the Slidell native, which included her leading the Southland in shooting (60.9%), field goals (195), rebounding (282) and rebound average (10.4) helped by a 21-board game against Nicholls that is still UL's second-highest single-game total. She led the team in scoring as a junior, and the following year finished off leading the Cajuns in rebounding for three straight years.
The scoring totals might have been higher if she'd played closer to the basket, something that Cook admitted.
"We had Aronji (Johnson) and she was so good down low," he said. "But I bet 80 percent of Aronji's scoring came from passes from the high post and that was Tenna. That kind of thing gets lost, and we asked a tremendous amount from her and she did it all.
"When we beat Oregon she played the low block the whole game, and she went down and battled and did it brilliantly. We beat them like a drum and she was the big reason. They couldn't do anything with her."
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She's the Ragin' Cajuns' all-time career rebound leader, she's the second-most accurate shooter in the history of the program and ranks seventh in school history in scoring, all despite her collegiate career ending almost four decades ago.
Imagine what she would have accomplished if Ross Cook had let her play under the basket her whole career. But the Cajun coach had bigger plans, and had the perfect player to run his high-post offense.
"Players like her are program builders," said Cook, who coached the Cajuns in the first three years of Cooper's career. "She could do all the little things on both ends of the floor, and then you realize she's 6-foot-3 and can run and pass, and with a basketball IQ that was off the charts."
Cooper was a transitional player who helped lead the Cajuns through uncharted waters and conference changes. In fact, she's one of the few in UL history to earn all-conference honors in two different leagues – the Southland Conference where she was a first-team pick as a junior in 1987, and the fledgling American South Conference where she took those honors in 1988 despite playing alongside a mercurial freshman talent that would go on to become the greatest player in Cajun history.
"She had a quality of character you don't see in the stat line," Cook said. "She had that, but she could also fill the stat box if that's what we needed. We had a lot of people that could score a lot of points, including her, but she was the reason that people scored those points. She made everybody around her better."
Because of that, Cooper will be inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 16, as part of a weekend of Hall of Fame activities that includes the Cajuns' fourth home game of the season against Troy on Saturday, Oct. 17. She will be inducted along with baseball standout Dylan Moore, three-time All-American triple jumper Lawrence Willis, football standout Fred Stamps and former Cajun football coach Nelson Stokley at the Friday night ceremony.
Tickets for the induction to be held at the McElligott Club at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium are available from the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation at RCAF@louisiana.edu or by calling (337) 851-7223.
Almost 40 years after her final game, Cooper remains UL's all-time rebounding leader with 1,082, and nobody has come within 100 rebounds of that total in that time. She also ranked second in program history in scoring at the end of her career, and still ranks seventh on that list with 1,358 points, making her the only Cajun ever with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.
She also shot 56.1 percent from the floor in her career and still holds the record for single-game shooting with a 10-for-10 floor effort against Rice in 1988 – a year that she shot 61.8 percent from the field.
That season, Cooper accepted a leadership charge from Cook that he said made great moments possible over the next few years when Kim Perrot joined the program and began her legendary career.
"We had one of the best players that's ever played the game out at the point," Cook said. "Tenna would come to me and say she's a freshman that's turning the ball over too much. I told her I know you can handle what I'm about to tell you, you're looking at one of the best players in America but she's not yet. I'm going to let her go, let her play wild and loose for a while and I'm asking you to understand what I'm doing.
"I told her she had to go to Kim and tell her where the two of your can do more, where you score best, where you need to get the ball. I wasn't going to squeeze her game at that point, that would come later, but Tenna as older and very intelligent player, I let her find out what's best for her and how she was going to improve because of her."
That season capped a stellar career for the Slidell native, which included her leading the Southland in shooting (60.9%), field goals (195), rebounding (282) and rebound average (10.4) helped by a 21-board game against Nicholls that is still UL's second-highest single-game total. She led the team in scoring as a junior, and the following year finished off leading the Cajuns in rebounding for three straight years.
The scoring totals might have been higher if she'd played closer to the basket, something that Cook admitted.
"We had Aronji (Johnson) and she was so good down low," he said. "But I bet 80 percent of Aronji's scoring came from passes from the high post and that was Tenna. That kind of thing gets lost, and we asked a tremendous amount from her and she did it all.
"When we beat Oregon she played the low block the whole game, and she went down and battled and did it brilliantly. We beat them like a drum and she was the big reason. They couldn't do anything with her."
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