While other children were playing tag, Alex Cooper was watching every Mike Tyson fight as a young kid as he grew up to be a big boxing fan. Cooper was born on June 1, 1983, and he graduated from Mentor High School in 2001.
He later graduated from Miami University of Ohio with a degrees in finance in 2005 and he earned his M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University. Cooper and his wife, Renee, have one daughter, Nora, and they are expecting a second daughter in late June. While in college, Cooper played lacrosse, and following graduation he wanted to continue to pursue athletics as he joined King ’s Gym in 2007 where he started training boxers under the tutelage of Robert Francis. By 2009, Cooper, alongside Francis, were training several successful fighters.
During his career, Cooper trained Golden Gloves and Junior Olympic
champions including Jeremy Abram, Aurel Love (Open Division boxers) and Rafael DeJesus (Junior Olympic boxer). Cooper traveled to Las Vegas in 2014 to coach Love in the Golden Gloves National Tournament where Love advanced to the quarter finals. Currently Cooper is the head amateur and assistant professional boxing coach at the Old School Boxing Club/ Strongstyle Fight Team in Independence under head coach Joe Delguyd and the boxing coach for the Strongstyle Fight
Team under head coach Marcus Marinelli.
Current Old School / StrongStyle Fight Team fighters include: Antonio “Carita” Nieves, Ryan “Blue Chip” Martin, KC Austen, Nelson Santana, Rafael DeJesus, Cody Stevens, John Hawk, Aleksa Camur, Kenny Locsei, JT Miller, Ben Willeford, Alison Ainley, Darion Peterson, Jeff Pelton, Luka Strezoski, UFC Bantamweight Jessica Eye and UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic.
Cooper is president of the Lake Erie Association, and he was secretary for the organization from 2013-2014.
According-to Cooper, his favorite (non Old School / Strongstyle) fighters are: Arturo Gatti, Terrence Crawford, Mike Tyson and Marvin Hagler, and the greatest and his favorite fight of all time was Gatti vs. Ward. Cooper is vice president and senior relationship manager in the Upper Middle Market Global Commercial Banking Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Cooper is a licensed Level Two USA Boxing judge, licensed professional cut man, trainer and manager. During the past five years.
Cooper has acted as a match- maker for about five amateur boxing shows a year.
According to Cooper, “My goals is to bring more notoriety to boxing in the Cleveland areas and to make Cleveland area boxers more prevalent on the national scene.”