Kevin Cooper brought a change of clothes with him to Fitzpatrick Stadium on Saturday. He was hoping he’d need them.

As the head coach of the Bonny Eagle High football team, there was a good chance Cooper would find himself on the receiving end of a Gatorade bucket shower if the Scots beat Mt. Blue in the Class A state championship game. So, to avoid a potentially soggy bus ride home, he packed heavily.

Cooper isn’t the kind of man who worries about jinxes. The Scots were prepared for the Cougars because Cooper and his staff – Earle “Pete” Cooper, John Suttie and Rich Brooks – put in the extra time, just as they had all season. Nothing else mattered.

On the Sunday after the Scots’ Western Class A win over Massabesic, the head coach drove to Auburn to meet up with Mt. Blue’s coaches and exchange game tapes. By nine o’clock he was back home, ready to meet with his assistants. For the next three hours they paused, fast-forwarded and rewound.

“The first thing we do is we look at our previous game, get that broken down so we can make some changes,” said Cooper. “We see who plays well and who can use some improvement.

“I handle both of the coordinator jobs for offense and defense, so it’s really up to me to work on finalizing a game plan. We did some preliminary work on Sunday. Basically, what we’re trying to do is get an understanding of the other team. That’s our main goal. We try to get some basic things done like what our blocking scheme is going to be, what our basic defense is going to be. And then as the week goes on we usually get together – usually on Monday, but this week we did it on Tuesday – to talk some more about what our plans are.”

Cooper admitted that he can be a bit controlling, but when it comes right down to it, he trusts his staff. That trust has created a bond that has carried right on over to the team.

Of course it helps that Pete is Cooper’s dad and Suttie is a childhood friend. And, even more than that, it helps that both guys have won state titles as head coaches – Pete at Lawrence High, where he coached for 28 years, and Suttie at Noble, where he coached for eight years.

Brooks, meanwhile, joined up last year with his son on the team. He asked a lot of questions and has fit right in.

“Our varsity staff is very close,” said Cooper. “We get along great and that’s great for me when you have people who are so capable.

“We’ll be talking to each other and busting each other’s chops during practice and the kids see that closeness.”

There was no busting of chops on Saturday. With the game plan in place and the players prepared, a switch was flipped.

As the Bonny Eagle captains met the Mt. Blue captains at midfield for the coin toss, Brooks handed Cooper the headset that would connect him with his father up in the press box. Time for the head coach to lock in.

Over the next two-plus hours, Cooper’s demeanor rarely wavered from the straight-faced look he presented before the game started. When Mt. Blue hit for a 66-yard pass completion a minute into the game, Cooper’s only outward reaction was to jog down the field and get himself into position to signal in the next defensive play.

When Chase Murray thwarted the drive by intercepting a Mason Barker pass a minute later, Cooper maintained his straight face.

“He’s different from his dad,” said Suttie, who got his coaching start beneath Earle at Lawrence. “His dad was a football coach that was able to reach a variety of kids in an emotional way. He made an emotional connection with kids. Kevin’s definitely more business-like, more Belichik-like, if you will.

“He’s definitely more black and white, sees things a certain way and is very even-keeled, which is nice because whether you win or lose he isn’t sky high or down in the dumps. He handles wins and losses the same way, in a very analytical sense.”

Cooper leaves the rah-rah stuff to Suttie and Brooks and freshman coaches Nat Germond and Ben Ledue. They could all be seen approaching the players on the sidelines, telling them what they did wrong, giving them words of encouragement.

Cooper’s only outbursts are related to Xs and Os. When he sees a sweep or reverse developing, he yells it out. When he sees the quarterback fake the handoff and drop back, he’s the first one to yell, “PASS! PASS!”

Other than that, though, it’s up to his staff to keep the players motivated. And they do. At the end of the first quarter, with Bonny Eagle up 7-0, Brooks approached a handful of defensive players and yelled, “Stop looking to players in the backfield and watch the block!”

Up in the press box, meanwhile, the elder Cooper served as his son’s second set of eyes. He could see things that the field-level coaches couldn’t see. When Mt. Blue made a substitution, he let his son know. He watched for adjustments that were being made on both sides of the ball and radioed them down.

Everything came together just as the Scots coaching staff had drawn it up. Bonny Eagle won the game 41-13.

“These coaches, the time they put in preparing us all season long was just amazing. Week to week they made adjustments and got us ready,” said senior running back John Wiechman, who finished the game with 228 yards and two touchdowns. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The preparations for next season will begin in the next couple of weeks. The Scots have another state title to defend.