Published: September 29, 2008 11:57 pm         

Rick Cook was a ‘sincere human being’

Rick Cook was remembered as a caring coach who kept a state championship machine going at Mercer Christian Academy.

Services were held Monday in Narrows, Va., for Cook, who died Thursday at age 45.

Cook won Class A girls titles in two of his four seasons as the Cavaliers’ coach.

“What a wonderful guy,” Williamstown girls coach Fred Sauro said Monday. “Besides having a very good basketball mind, he was just a genuine and sincere human being. I think the basketball community is going to miss him a ton.”

Cook’s daughter, Brittany, is a senior at Virginia Tech and led the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring last season. She played for her father from 2001-04 and won state titles in 2001 and 2002.

“He had good talent, but there’s a lot of guys that have it that aren’t able to work with it,” Sauro said. “He was able to blend it and do very, very well.”

Brittany Cook, Tracy Wyatt and four members of the Wilkerson family helped build Mercer Christian into one of the state’s most successful girls programs. Starting in 1993, the Cavaliers won seven titles in a nine-year span. Only Parkersburg Catholic has more Class A titles.

After the school’s final championship in 2002, Cook brought his entire team to the post-game news conference.

“It’s the chemistry that makes us successful. It’s not the individualism,” he said. “In football, the tailback’s going to get the recognition, but the line works hard.”

Rick Cook resigned a few months later to return to his Virginia home but ended up back on Mercer Christian’s bench that December when first-year coach Maurice Johnson resigned after losing two of his first three games. Cook coached only three games before the school announced its season would end because the roster was down to just six players.

Cook returned for the 2003-04 season. But in the state championship game at the Charleston Civic Center, Wheeling Central used a 20-2 run to deny the Cooks one final championship, 57-40.

“The one thing I really liked about him was he didn’t make any excuses,” said Wheeling Central coach Penn Kurtz. “When they won, they won. And when they lost, they got beat.

“He was a gentleman. I know he ran a tough program, but it was fair. He got the most out of his players.”

After stepping down from Mercer Christian for good in 2004, Cook operated a construction business in Narrows.

In addition to his daughter, Cook is survived by his mother, Linda Meredith Frazier; his wife of 24 years, Kimberly; two sons, Richard II and William; two brothers and two sisters.

Riffe Funeral Service Inc. of Narrows listed Cook’s death as unexpected. A spokeswoman at Carilion Giles Memorial Hospital in Pearisburg, Va., didn’t immediately returned a telephone message Monday.