There really is a soft side to the hard-boiled coach. Honest. It comes in the form of a tireless 21-month-old girl named Miko.

The coach is Granite Bay High School's Ernie Cooper, who has embraced the title of Papa Cooper.

Though the bespectacled coach considers himself a "surfer dude" transplant from the Santa Cruz beaches, or a "math nerd," he is every bit old school when students around him are in shoulder pads and helmets. A grinder, a yeller, a taskmaster. Those traits were the foundation by which Cooper created a football dynasty from scratch, so it's hard to argue with the man's methods.

Granite Bay went from new-school novelty in 1997 to bonafide feared machine seemingly overnight, and The Cooper Way became a blueprint borrowed by other coaches as a fast-track road to success.

Cooper incorporated his will, organizational skills, ability to motivate and unique "Fly Offense" with a bustling community where there is no shortage of eager scholar athletes or parents and boosters willing to donate funds to build top-flight facilities.

Granite Bay is coming off its third Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship and debuts as The Bee's No. 1 team as it bounds into another year of promise.

Somewhere, little Miko is owed a game ball, if you ask the players. They can't wait to see her bound across the practice field with her smiling face and put a grin on their otherwise snarling coach.

"The players will say, 'Oh, Mrs. Cooper, can you please bring Miko by again tomorrow? It softens coach up,' " said Cooper's wife, Carol. "It's been wonderful, and Miko has taken 15 years off Ernie's life.

"He used to blow a gasket over paperwork on jerseys, or something. Now he says he can't wait to see Miko."

There's a reason for the softening. For years, the only immediate family Cooper had in town was his football team. He and Carol tried for 15 years to have a baby.

"She's our miracle baby," Cooper said, booming of good cheer. "Took us years to have her, and all of a sudden, here she is. She's the joy of our lives."

All things considered, there's a lot of joy for the Cooper clan these days. Granite Bay returns eight starters from its 11-2 team, and it is a fast, hard-hitting group. As the Grizzlies aim for their 10th consecutive playoff berth, they will help fill their ranks with players from a junior varsity squad that went 10-0.

Cooper, 48, is 103-29-1 at Granite Bay, with seven of those losses coming in 1997, his only losing season. The 1999 and 2000 section title teams went a combined 25-1. They surprised no one.

But last year's showing was a bit of a surprise, at least after the Grizzlies were butchered 33-0 on homecoming night by Rocklin, the worst setback of Cooper's career.

Cooper raised his voice plenty after the Rocklin game. No Miko to buffer then. He insisted the team hash it out on the large "G" at midfield. An hour later, it was hashed out, and Granite Bay responded with an eight-game winning streak.

"Coach knew we could turn it around," Granite Bay defensive end Colton Pauhlus said. "We believe in him."

"I was taking a course on psychology of sports during that whole debacle – infighting and everything," Cooper said. "Learned a lot. We all did. Sometimes you need some humble pie."

When Mike Gimenez started Whitney's football program three years ago, he phoned Cooper. Gimenez wanted that key to avoiding those humble pies.

"I learned a lot," Gimenez said. "I wanted to do it the way he did, where you don't have to wait years to become competitive."

Said Grant coach Mike Alberghini: "As a coach, Ernie Cooper is what everybody aims to be. He's a hard worker, and he get his kids to play hard, play tough. He's one of the best coaches in town and has earned the right to be called that."

One Cooper staple is keeping his players fresh. The coach teaches weight training and speed and agility, making the 4,000-square-foot state-of-the-art weight room the campus athletic hub. From December until June, that is the extent of any football participation.

"I won't let players do football-related things after school after the season," Cooper said. "They all do it – every other school – but I refuse. I don't think kids should go through high school completely consumed by football."

Funny thing. Until a little one named Miko came along, Cooper was consumed by his sport.

Call The Bee's Joe Davidson at (916) 321-1280.