University of Wisconsin secondary coach Kerry Cooks can still recall the anxiety and culture shock that he experienced when he left home for the first time as a college freshman. Cooks, an Iowa football recruit, was a long way from his roots and comfort zone, too. Home was Irving, Texas for Cooks, the product of a middle-class upbringing. While making the adjustment to a different environment and lifestyle in a different region of the country, Cooks, an African-American, didn’t see many people who looked like him in Iowa City.
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