Ed Cooley Parents: Meet Edward Smith, Jane Cooley

Ed Cooley is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the Providence College Friars men’s basketball team.

Ed Cooley was born in Providence, Rhode Island on September 10, 1969, to Jane Cooley and Edward Smith.  Ed Cooley was one of nine children raised by his mother in a welfare household in the low-income South Providence neighbourhood.

He was raised in Dickensian poverty, eating sandwiches with only sugar on them and pancakes with water, and sleeping four to a bed in South Providence’s poorest neighbourhood.

Ed Cooley was later taken in by neighbours Gloria and Eddie Searight, who provided him with food and a place to sleep.

He escaped through basketball, becoming a star at Providence’s Central High School, earning a college degree while leading the Stonehill College team, and then going on to a successful coaching career at Fairfield College in Connecticut.

In 2022, he was named the recipient of the Naismith Coach of the Year, the Sporting News Coach of the Year, the BIG EAST Coach of the Year, the NABC District 5 Coach of the Year and the USBWA District 1 Coach of the Year.