Jon Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach
Jessie Cooper shares her experience as an attorney, wife to AN NHL coach, and mother Jessie Cooper, attorney and wife of Jon Cooper, spoke this past year at WMU-Cooley’s Tampa Bay campus about her career, family life, and best practices when in the public, community and media. She spoke to the group of local attorneys, faculty, staff and students about her equally interesting journey of being an attorney and how she and her husband have learned to balance career, family and life. “I would like to share a brief history of all of my different moves and what I learned along the way about civility, professionalism, marketing, keeping it all together, and keeping a job,” started Jessie. Following her husband from state to state was at times rough, but some of the toughest things for her included taking that state’s bar exam every time they moved, and then finding legal work in a new place where she didn’t know anyone.
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She remembers with a smile about their move to Texarkana, Texas, which was Jon’s first full-time job as a coach. “Jon was gone all the time,” said Jessie. “He was building this small team in a nonhockey market, so he had to do a lot of work just building the fan base and selling tickets. We literally painted the lines on the ice ourselves. It was not glamorous. My job was more glamorous. And at this time, I made more money than he did. So I was the one who was keeping us afloat, so to speak. And I learned so much at that job.” “My boss at that time was previously a partner with a federal judge, so I actually did a ton of court-appointed work in the federal