An Onomatopoeia

Rootsy: "Wow. Fulham and Washington Football Team really spark the dialogue around here."

Me: "Yeah. So I’m doubling down on WFT news. Smart."

Chris Cooley... love that guy. 

You may remember him best because it was his release that irked Rob enough to drop them in favor of the Saints for a hot minute and then . . . footie.

You may also remember him from this 2012 G:TB post involving his contract request for a case of beer after every game.

Before that, he opened a pottery shop near Rob and Marls, as reported by Gheorghe: The Blog.

And a decade ago, he made the Ghoogles. (Very glad Teej resurrected this segment.)

In non-GTB postings, his Wikipedia page's "Personal Life" section amuses:

Though he has previously attended The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he has not affiliated with that Church since at least 2004. He and his first wife Angela divorced in 2005. Later that year, he started dating Redskinnette (Redskin cheerleader) Christy Oglevee. She was fired for fraternizing with Redskins players, which the Redskins organization prohibits. They married on May 23, 2008 in Landsdowne, Virginia. In January 2012 they separated, and in September they announced their intent to divorce.

Cooley's first child, daughter Sloane, was born on September 11, 2014. Cooley, frequently referred to by his nickname "Captain Chaos," is known for his eccentric hair styles, affinity for heavy metal music, and what one reporter has called an "Animal House persona". This nickname was created when teammates bet him he would not go out to the opening coin toss and introduce himself to the opposing team captains as "Captain Chaos". Cooley did so and the nickname stuck.

Cooley maintains his own blog, "The Cooley Zone." On Sunday, September 14, 2008, Cooley posted on his blog a photo of Redskins training materials that also included his genitals. The picture remained on his site all day Sunday until it was finally removed. Cooley apologized and referred to the incident as "a complete accident", claiming that he initially posted the photo without realizing it showed his genitals.

Cooley majored in art at Utah State, and now pursues a side career as a potter. He owns an art gallery in Leesburg.

Like Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, Chris Cooley is just his own kind of cool. What is it about that surname that works like an onomatopoeia on those who carry it?

So I listened to this interview with Cooley from yesterday AM. For any fan of the guy, it's worth the 15 minutes.



https://omny.fm/shows/kevin-sheehan-show/08-13-20-kevin-sheehan-show-hour-2

As always, Chris Cooley is some chill cross between Seth Rogen and Brian Hightower. He confirms that he got offers in recent years to be an announcer for Fox, ESPN, and the NFL network, among others. Offers that would have either made him move to L.A. or Bristol (Cooley offers an amusing hard no to living in Connecticut) or at least had him on the road Thurs-Sun 20 weeks a year. He didn’t want to be away from his young kids. 

He has known for some time that his days in the Washington booth were numbered. Once the shake-up (debacle) involving Larry Michael happened, he was toast.

So this spring he had decided he was going to coach high school football up near where he and Rob and Marls live. It was all happening, and then . . . COVID. Sucks. That would’ve been a cool development for him and whatever HS had the pleasure. 

As for me and my personal happiness, well . . . Chris Cooley was always a broadcaster and a dude who called it precisely like he saw it (based on hours and hours of studying game film the way the team's coaches seemingly didn't) -- while bleeding burgundy and gold and with a clever sense of humor. When the team sucked, and let’s face it, that was pretty much always (he saluted his former employer and said he loved the job, adding, “would’ve been fun if they had won . . . any games”), having that guy in the booth was a major salve to fans. His presence on the air was a good-sized quotient of why I’d rally some masochistic friends, don some stupid old jersey, order up some wings, crack open some cold swill, delay the TV to synch with the radio broadcast, and hunker down more Sundays than not. 

This franchise has eroded most of my commitment to their cause. 

At the close of the above interview, Kevin Sheehan asks Cooley if he can stick around after the break to actually talk football, and he says, "Buddy, I would love to, but I've got a big day . . . and my son just woke up. I can talk football with you next week."  He's his own dude.

Along the way, he said he's now "kind of looking forward to fluttering in the wind a little bit." I hope we get to hear about it.