Maybe you’ve noticed. Maybe not. Joyce Cook has.
Her 6-foot-10-inch son is starting to look even taller now, if that’s possible. Lately, when he trots onto the basketball court, his shoulders are back and there’s a bounce to his step. A lot of times he even smiles.
Cook says he believes his new approach might have something to do with the sports psychologist he has been talking to on the phone the last few weeks. Or maybe the constant reminders from Illinois coach Bill Self and his mother to relax are sinking in.
There’s also the chance that telling the whole country how his father used to beat up his mother finally has put his troubled mind at ease.
“Brian can go through mood swings,” senior teammate Lucas Johnson says. “When his attitude is down, his play is down. But he’s playing with a lot of confidence now.”
For better or for worse, Brian Cook is Norman Cook’s son. Some kids are lucky. Their fathers grow up to be doctors or lawyers or firemen. Brian’s father has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Over the last 15 years the former Kansas star has been committed by court order to the Andrew McFarland Mental Health Center in Springfield, Ill., nearly a dozen times.
Outwardly Brian shows no ill effects. His smile and his jump shot can still light up an arena. Cook says he believes his sessions with the sports psychologist are paying off.
“He’s telling me the same old things my mom does,” Cook says. “He’s more of a friend than anything. I can talk about personal problems. But the main thing he tries to get out of me is the fact that I have to believe in myself more before I can become successful. If you don’t think you’re good, you’re not going to be good.”
Cook may not be a natural leader–or a hard-nosed one–but lately he has been doing a dead-on impersonation of one.
“His thought process is a little different now,” Joyce Cook says. “Brian plays best when he’s out there having fun. Does he put pressure on himself? Oh, yes. He has always been that way. He doesn’t notice what he does good, he only notices his mistakes. But he’s starting to realize he has to let those things go, and go on.”
Cook says it’s time. Time to show up, put up and let go. Time to come out from under his rock and escape the hard place.
“I think I’m definitely showing that I want to win as badly as anyone else,” he says. “I’m trying to go out and be aggressive like I was in high school. I know these guys need me to win.”
On Feb. 12 at Michigan State, Cook had 10 points and seven rebounds in Illinois’ 63-61 victory. But that wasn’t what left the biggest impression. It was the way the former Illinois Mr. Basketball stood up for teammate Johnson as they were trotting off the court at halftime.
A Spartans fan, carrying a sign that disparaged Johnson, waved it in Cook’s face. The mild-mannered Cook ripped it down.
“He doesn’t like stuff that close to his face,” Joyce Cook says with a laugh. “When you get him mad, watch out. As they say, sometimes the quiet kids are the toughest. He has a mean streak in there. You just have to get it out of him.”
Odd, isn’t it, that Brian would turn out to be such a gentle giant? So deferential to authority? So unfailingly polite? A really, really nice kid? Or maybe it’s not so odd, given the way Joyce Cook raised him, given the violence he witnessed at home.
“Every kid needs a mother and a father,” Joyce says. “Brian didn’t have that positive male influence. The way he dealt with it was by putting his energy into me. He’s real strong mentally now. It was like he decided he had to put that part of his life aside and go on. I think he has done that really well.”
Shortly after Brian committed to Illinois four years ago, Joyce and her son talked to the Tribune’s Barry Temkin about the ordeal Norman Cook’s mental illness put them through. Joyce revealed how she had become pregnant with Brian toward the end of her senior year at Downstate Lincoln High School, where she met Norman.
Long before Brian starred at Lincoln, Norman Cook had done the same, leading his 30-1 team to the Elite Eight his senior year and going on to an all-Big Eight career at Kansas and a two-year NBA career in Boston and Denver.
Brian was born on Dec. 4, 1980. Joyce married Norman, Brian’s biological father, the following December. Joyce described how Norman gradually began to deteriorate mentally and become abusive. She divorced Norman late in 1986. The Tribune recounted Cook’s numerous arrests, including a felony count of aggravated battery against a peace officer on March 8, 1994, one for alleged domestic battery in November 1997, and a series of misdemeanors.
The Cooks remained silent on the topic for the next four years, turning down repeated requests from reporters.
“Brian,” Joyce says, “wanted to make his own way and not just be Norman’s son.”
Earlier this month, though, Brian spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis, who wrote the most detailed version of their hell to date.
“My father’s problems are something I’ve had to deal with my entire life,” Cook says. “We basically kept it quiet, although people in the area know. My mother felt I was old enough to deal with it and we made a decision to make it public. I couldn’t have cared less, though, if it came out.”
Joyce Cook told the magazine she believes her daughter, Kristina, a senior volleyball player at Lincoln, was conceived while Norman held a knife to her throat. She said Norman’s delusions manifested themselves in intense jealousy and a need to keep her literally locked inside the house.
“There were people who have known me for years who didn’t know that stuff was going on,” Joyce Cook says. “People on Norman’s side of the family were not happy with the story. They still want to protect Norm. But maybe some of the things I’ve been through can help people in the same situation. I think getting it out has done wonders for Brian. He was keeping a lot of it in and I think it really hurt.”
Self worried about the effect the story would have on Cook, but his fears proved unfounded.
“After it came out, I felt like a weight was lifted off him because he was OK with it,” Self said.
Perhaps the heaviest weight Cook feels is the weight of expectations. With his soft hands, muscular 6-10, 240-pound frame and sweet shooting touch, many observers wondered if he might leave school early and declare for the NBA draft.
Not now, Cook insists. Not after the way Illinois has struggled. Not after the way he has struggled at times too.
“I’ve got to finish school,” he says. “You’ve got to have something to fall back on. Basketball won’t be there your whole life. Someday I’m going to have to work in an office. My plan was to see how this year went. I still have a lot of improving to do.”
One knock on Cook is that he’s soft. Cook disputes that. The other knock is that he’s inconsistent. On that score the numbers don’t lie. Against Penn State last year he scored 22 points in the first half and zero thereafter in a 98-95 overtime loss. Three weeks ago in a 67-61 home loss to Michigan State, Cook scored 20 points in the first half and only two in the second.
“When things aren’t going well, Brian wants to be one of many,” Self said. “When things start to go his way, he demands the ball.”
During the current six-game winning streak, Cook has averaged 15.3 points and 8.1 rebounds and been Illinois’ most dependable performer.
“When he plays like that, it helps everyone,” point guard Frank Wiliams says. “It opens up the outside for Sean Harrington and Cory Bradford and me. Cookie is a big reason we’re winning now.”
Joyce Cook loves the sound of that. Still 10 hours short of earning an associate’s degree from Heartland Community College, she’s employed as a telephone company dispatcher in Lincoln. But her studies will have to wait, until Kristina and probably youngest daughter Natasha are in college.
By then, Brian will not only have his B.A., but may be in the NBA to stay.
“We’ve got five seniors, but they aren’t going to be here much longer,” says Cook, who said he would stay for his senior season, honoring his mother’s wish. “When they leave it’ll be my turn. I’ve got to start being mean now on the court, between the lines.”
Cook is proud of who he is, proud to be Joyce Cook’s son. He loves his father, but he’s not Norman Cook and never will be.
“My mom did a good job with me,” Cook said earlier this season. “I’m still real quiet. I go home when everybody else stays here. I like being alone a lot. On the court I need to be tougher, but off it I’m not going to change. Why? Because if I changed my mother would be mad.”
Hearing that, Joyce Cook laughs again.
“You don’t teach your kids to be ballplayers,” she says. “You teach them to be good human beings. That sounds like him. Brian has always had this thing: He wants to please his mama.”
