The young man in the picture above is named Cooper McKinnon. This picture was taken at the 2012 World Championships when he was a senior.
The first real FRC event I went to was a week zero event hosted by my team at a Chaska elementary school during the 2011 Logomotion game. Despite taking place in an elementary school gym, we had two fantastic emcees who made the event come alive— our robot wasn’t moving, but I still remember the excitement that Cooper and his friend Alex brought to the competition. As the day progressed, they got more and more caution tape thrown on them— they made hula skirts out of the stuff, and crowns, and shirts. It was draped over them like a robe. Cooper in particular never let the excitement die down— leading dances, organizing “human Logomotion” where mentors and students competed as robots. Even when our team was struggling to find anything to be happy about at the week zero, he was there, and his excitement.
The rest of that season didn’t treat us much better, but Cooper was still there, cheering as loud as ever when our robot took the field, even if it never moved and only managed to score less than a dozen tubes all season.
On Sunday, March 16th, 2014, we lost Cooper.
Today, his memorial service was held, and among the speakers were all the people whose lives he touched, stories like mine of the enthusiastic, optimistic personality he projected to us all.
I can’t say I knew Cooper well, but he was an alumni of Team 2220, and he made an entire season of failure seem like the best thing in the world for me as a clueless freshman. He was an example to our entire team of how to behave at competitions-- boundless enthusiasm, willing to help anyone that asked. His loss leaves our team and community the worse.
There is help out there, whether it's for you, or a friend. Whether it's depression or any number of other stressors, there are resources out there and there are people, friends, family, community that can help. There's a stigma around depression and suicide in our society that makes it difficult for those that need help the most to find it. Just because he appeared to be happy didn't mean that he was.
There are endless what if's and could have been's that lead into this tragedy, and I can only hope that our experience can serve to help someone, somewhere, to seek they help they need, and a friend, family, community, team, church to give it.