In May 2005, Cooper was named the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Prairie View A&M University.
Cooper’s impact at Prairie View was immediate. In just her second season, Cooper led the underdog Panthers to the SWAC tournament title, netting the school its first-ever Women’s NCAA Tournament bid.
In January 2008, the NCAA penalized Prairie View for NCAA rules violations committed by Cooper, reducing the number of scholarships for the team. The school was placed on four years’ probation for “major violations” in 2005–2006 that ranged from Cooper giving players small amounts of cash to various forms of unauthorized practices. Cooper also gave players free tickets to Comets game, which is another NCAA infraction.
On May 10, 2010, she was announced as the next Head Coach of the UNC Wilmington Seahawks Women’s Basketball team. During her first year at UNCW, Cooper was named CAA Coach of the Year.
On April 10, 2012, Cooper resigned from UNCW and became the head coach at Texas Southern. The move gave her the opportunity to return to Houston, where she spent a lot of time as a player.
On April 11, 2013, she was introduced as the head coach for the University of Southern California women’s basketball team. On March 3, 2017, Cooper-Dyke resigned as head coach at USC, following a 14–16 season in 2016–17 and 70–56 overall record.
In April 2019, she returned to coach at Texas Southern.
Cooper was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. She was also announced as a member of the 2010 induction class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (the first WNBA player to be inducted), and was formally inducted on August 13 of that year.
Although born in Chicago, Illinois, Cooper-Dyke grew up in South Central Los Angeles, California. Cooper-Dyke is the daughter of Mary and Kenny Cooper. Her father left the family when she was only six years old, leaving her mother to raise eight children. Cooper-Dyke attended the University of Southern California and played on their women’s basketball team for four years, winning NCAA championships in 1983 and 1984 with star teammate Cheryl Miller, but left in 1986 before earning a degree. She played on international women’s basketball teams in Spain and Italy for a decade before returning to the US to play for the Houston Comets. While abroad she learned to speak Italian fluently.
In 2000, she published her autobiography, entitled She Got Game: My Personal Odyssey, which covered her childhood, her basketball career up to that time, and her mother’s battle with breast cancer.
Her first marriage was on July 30, 1993 to Anthony Stewart in San Antonio, Texas. On April 28, 2001, she was married to Brian Dyke. She is a mother to twins—a son, Brian Jr., and a daughter, Cyan, born on June 15, 2002.
After a successful college and professional basketball career, won four WNBA Championships and induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, she turned to coaching. She began her coaching career in 2005 at Prairie View A&M University in Texas and guided the team to three SWAC Championships. While at the university, Cooper-Dyke turned student and coach and completed college requirements and earned a bachelor’s degree in Health and Human Performance in 2010.