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Debbie Copp – University of Oklahoma, Retired

CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award

by Tam Flarup – University of Wisconsin (retired)

This spring, CoSIDA is honoring Debbie Copp of the University of Oklahoma with a Lifetime Achievement Award. But I am honoring her with a lifetime friendship award after over 40 years of being my personal and professional friend.
 
I first met Debbie in 1976, when I was a wide-eyed youngster in my first year as women’s sports information director at the University of Kansas. Debbie accompanied the OU women’s softball team to the Big Eight (yes, eight) Championship being held at KU.
 
Although a lifetime softball player, I had never scored a game let alone hosted a big tournament. Debbie saw that I needed some help and stepped in immediately not only scoring her own games but helping out with all the others. The tournament was a success because of Debbie.
 
Our professional friendship started that year, but our personal friendship evolved over many years. I moved to the University of Wisconsin the following year, but not even the miles or different conferences could keep us from communicating about all the issues our women athletes and teams faced in those early years.
 
I looked forward to every CoSIDA workshop (then, convention) to catch up with Debbie in person and have dinner and a lot of laughs. I could always count on Debbie to be honest and straight forward in her thoughts and advice. And she delivered that advice with her patented humor, slightly dripping with sarcasm, but always truthful.
 
We were almost always on the same page with the care and attention we gave our sports and our schools, and with the love and respect we gave our profession and CoSIDA. We worked through the organization to make changes.
 
 
We were always on CoSIDA committees, sometimes serving together which made for interesting committee meetings. Debbie took on the unenviable task of being the chair of the (former) Committee on Committees, which meant she and her cohorts had to attend all the committee meetings at CoSIDA. Her committee was required to collect the accomplishments of the committees during the year and evaluate the need for committees and propose new ones, especially as technology took CoSIDA in its big leap into the future.
 
Debbie also was active on the Special Awards Committee and the former Publicists for Women’s Sports, Publications Awards, and former Computer Committee. She participated in welcome sessions for new members and mentored many as an active member of FAME (now WoSIDA).
 
If you are paying attention, then you are picking up on a common theme of service in everything Debbie did.
 
Yet it wasn’t just about serving her school and CoSIDA. Her outreach was also to her community and particularly the arts. She and longtime partner, Theta Dempsey, loved going to shows and contributed greatly to the arts in Norman. They were also active in campus activities outside of athletics. Debbie was the first three-time chair of the Norman Campus Staff Senate. She also served on the Publications Board, was a member of and served as chair of the Information Staff Association, the Employee Benefits Committee, the Board of Visitors for the College of Arts and Sciences and on multiple campus search committees.
 
Off campus, she served on the board of the Women’s Resource Center and held the position as board chair. She was on the Board of Visitors for the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History and several other groups that worked to improve the quality of life in Norman, her adopted hometown.
 
Debbie was honored by CoSIDA in recognition of her outstanding service at the 2015 convention with the inaugural President’s Award, presented annually to a CoSIDA member or members to honor exemplary service and leadership within the organization’s committee structure in support of programs that benefit CoSIDA members.
 
"It is very humbling to receive an award for service to an organization that has been so much a part of my professional life, has given me so much, and has provided so many lifelong friends,” Copp noted. “Because of the nature of what we do, the members of CoSIDA have highly developed service genes in our makeup.

"Regardless of the format, our profession is about sharing the stories of our student-athletes, coaches, administrators, donors and alumni," Copp said. "For me, service and story-telling go hand in hand and we are the best in the business at both.”
 
A true professional and pioneer in sports information, Debbie has accumulated many honors throughout her 43-year career.
 
In addition to the President’s Award, she was also honored by CoSIDA  in 2008 with the Bob Kenworthy Community Service Award and later was recognized for her life’s embodiment of service and professionalism with induction to the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2012.
 
OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications named her a Distinguished Alumni in 2017.
 
As the director of publications and awards at Oklahoma, she received a slew of national honors for her written and digital media guides. She also was honored with several CoSIDA Fred Stabley writing contest awards.

Her work as the awards coordinator for OU generated numerous conference and national awards for the Sooner athletes, coaches and staff. She handled the nominations for two NCAA Inspiration Award winners, three NCAA Silver Anniversary winners, four NCAA Top VI, VIII and 10 honorees and three CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame honorees. Scholarship awards increased with her involvement as OU added a Walter Byers Scholarship winner, four NACDA John McClendon Minority Postgraduate Scholarship honorees and six NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships since 2015-16.
 
This Lifetime Achievement Award caps off a near sweep of CoSIDA awards honoring the best in our profession. It is my great honor to congratulate my friend, Debbie Copp, on a lifetime of achievement at the highest levels of the profession. Well deserved!