January 17, 2020: Combat and Incarceration, Part One

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This week starts our series of conversations with Valrice “Whop” Cooper, the legendary cornerman who learned his craft training prisoners in the Louisiana DOC’s boxing program. For this episode, we discuss his thirty-five-year prison term that began in 1976 at the age of 17, and how coming into contact with the Black Power movement- one of the first recognized prison chapters of the Black Panther Party- during that time helped him become one of the best coaches in the game. The first of several interviews with Whop, we lay the groundwork for exploring the world of prison boxing. The interviewer is Trey Sterling, whose recent article “Combat and Incarceration” focuses on the history of prison boxing. You can read that article here.