BURIEN, Wash. — The Highline High School football program has been craving a sight like the one seen on nights before gameday. They've been famished for a few more wins both on the field, and off the field.
A feast with families—a potluck-style dinner to bring the team together before the game—shows the pickings are good, but it certainly wasn't always this way.
The feast is thanks to coach Deontae Cooper—someone who knows the feeling of being hungry for change.
Cooper was a former UW standout, or at least should have been.
He came to Montlake as a four-star running back, but spent more time running from injury than running the football.
"It felt like Groundhog's Day. Tearing your ACL in the left knee the first year, then tearing it again the second year, and then tearing your other leg the third year," he said.
Cooper suffered three torn ACLs before playing one college snap.
"I've been playing football since I was eight years old and never been hurt before until I got to college," he said.
Cooper's college career ended up lasting seven years; his playing career ended with an NFL tryout but nothing more. Cooper was prepared to leave his football career entirely.
"I ran from it," Cooper said. "I ran from it at first because of that experience like, 'Awe man I poured so much into this and I didn't get the end result that I wanted.'"
But Cooper wanted closure even more. That's when he turned to coaching.
"Despite the cruelties and the experiences that I went through in my college career, I just knew there was more for me to give the game. I figured out, let's be a head coach, let's go try and be a program and let's go try and inject some of my learnings into kids and coaches and teachers," he said.
Coach Cooper got his start as an assistant at Bellevue High School, then earned his first head coaching job in 2019.
He was tasked with leading Highline High, where the football program had hit its low.
"There was no expectation. There was no standard. There was no belief. Historically had struggled academically. The kids struggled athletically. How can I implement some things and change this culture?" he said.
In three-plus years, Cooper has done more than change the culture.
He's changed the future.
In 2021, the team won its first district title in decades.
"There's been a lot of people talking about something happening in 1950," Cooper said in regards to the last time either had been done.
The wins on the field have led to wins with student retention.
"Coming into Highline, I've heard a lot of outside noise of people being like, 'Oh you shouldn't go to that school. You should go to this school because you'll have a better chance of being recruited out of that school.' All the stuff that's been said because of Highline's history," said Marquawn McCraney, a four-star recruit with offers from Washington, USC and Oregon State, among other Pac-12 schools.
The success for Highline is why the feast tastes so good.
"We break bread together," Cooper said.
It's a feast that's helping heal the scars of the past, and quenching the hunger of a school and a coach.
"Just as much as I'm pouring into them, they're pouring into me," Cooper said.