The life and legacy of former Churchill wrestling star Kenny Cox is being remembered in a new book “Seeking Kenny: A Wrestler’s Journey,” written by Michael Copperman, a South Eugene alum.
The book is set to release July 5 at Tsunami Books in Eugene, followed by an event July 8 in Portland at Literary Arts Cafe. Copperman will also have events July 13 and July 14 at Central Library in Bend and Sisters Public Library, respectively.
Copperman, who was a year younger than Cox, was also a standout wrestler for the Axe, earning a scholarship from Stanford after taking second place in the state tournament three out of four years in high school.
“We all used to train in the old University of Oregon wrestling room and Kenny and I were on the national team together a couple years,” Copperman said. “I knew him growing up and looked up to him growing up. He was, at that time, the best high school wrestler in United States history at least in terms of freestyle and Greco Roman.”
Copperman, who currently is an assistant professor at Michigan State University, set out to capture the spirit of Cox, who unexpectedly died at age 31 in 2009 a couple weeks after spending 70 days in the Kalalau Valley in Hawaii with no supplies.
Cox was a winner of five junior national titles and 10 Oregon championships in collegiate, freestyle and Greco Roman styles and later wrestled at UO.
However, after a college career that didn’t pan out due in part to the mental toll of cutting weight, Cox went on a journey to try and discover himself.
Cox once set out on foot from Oregon to Baja California in Mexico. Once there, Cox tried to learn how to sail, befriended many strangers and ultimately tried to find meaning.
The star wrestler eventually found his way home where he sold his house and took off for Kauai, Hawaii.
“I ran into Kenny once in the middle of that, after he had come back from Mexico but before he went down to Kauai, and I talked to him just a little bit about the Mexico part of his trip,” Copperman said. “I was able to sort of recreate and reconstruct the stories of everything that happened to him and sort of get all of these different accounts and reflections and stories and memories by interviewing basically everyone that Kenny was close to or had an intense relationship with.”
Copperman was previously a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction for his memoir “Teacher: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta” where Copperman recounts his time teaching in the Deep South.
The new book sets out to try and find what it was Cox was looking for while telling the story of a successful athlete who was looking for meaning past his glory days.
Copperman recalls how Cox was an unforgettable presence not just for Eugene wrestling, but all of Oregon wrestling.
“Kenny had this kind of charisma and buoyancy to him, and if you ever saw him wrestle you really didn’t ever forget it,” Copperman said. “He had a distinctive style and approach, the intensity and the speed and the sort of forward rushing energy. He was really something.”
Copperman helped Cox coach for a couple years at South Eugene before Cox set out on his journey to Mexico.
What Copperman is excited to share with readers is not just the incredible accomplishments Cox earned, but also his presence in life and the way he respected all those around him.
“Kenny was an extraordinary person, not just in how much he was driven and how excellent of an athlete he was, but he also had this way about him, he treated every single person as if they were deserving of respect,” Copperman said. “He would literally give people the shirt off his back, and that way of trying to be in the world and trying to find a place where we can live and be kind to one another and treat each other with the best sort of intentions, that was the kind of world that Kenny wanted.”
In Eugene, there is an annual Kenny Cox memorial tournament featuring local high school programs each winter.
But the legacy of Cox in Eugene is much more than one tournament in Copperman’s eyes.
“There are echoes of him that I’m aware of when I’m back in Eugene,” Copperman said. “I’ll run into some of the kids that were on those teams that Kenny and I coached and they’ll still tell me about how much of an impact Kenny had on them and in those years.”
Those voices and more on the ones that helped drive the story for Copperman who talked to friends, family and many more for the book.
And it’s one that any wrestler in Oregon is sure to connect with.
“This isn’t a book about mythologizing a person, but at the same time, I think that sometimes we forget very quickly those people that came before,” Copperman said. “I think there’s something about Kenny that can be remembered and celebrated.”
austinw@osaa.org
Subscribe
