Perry Meridian High School Athletics

At the “7th Annual Indiana Champions Together Luncheon” Falcon Unified Coach, Maggie Cooper, was awarded the “Indiana State 2025 Spirit of Unified Coach Award” for her work with Unified Sports at Perry Meridian High School. Coach Cooper coaches flag football, bocce ball, bowling, and track & field for the unified Falcons. To illustrate Coach Cooper's impact, the Introduction from the Awards Banquet: They used to be those kids. You know the ones people said we shouldn’t try something with—because surely they couldn’t do it. They were “Falcons”, yes—but hidden, unnoticed, defined by their label more than by their light. It started small. Back then, I was just an assistant athletic director, and I asked our brand-new CIP teacher for help with this “Unified Track” thing a few schools were trying out. After all, she had been a Falcon herself—part of our Special Olympics basketball team in high school. I thought… maybe we’d get a few good pictures of our student-athletes giving back, maybe hang a banner that most schools around us didn’t have yet. But that small ask? It tapped into something unstoppable. A spirit that would awaken a quiet revolution. One person said yes. And in doing so, she changed everything. Maggie Cooper didn’t just help that first spring—she took off sprinting toward a vision none of us had imagined. We laughed a lot that first season, unsure what we were doing, even as we qualified for the state finals. But Maggie wasn’t just having fun—she was dreaming. And while Falcon Unified Sports started on the track, it soon spilled into the hallways… Lunch tables became shared... Art and music rooms became stages for new voices… Pep sessions, cheer blocks, homecoming parades created new spaces and Frozen plunges became places of belonging. Maggie learned all the rules for bocce ball, bowling, basketball, and flag football—just so our kids could play. Because to Maggie, all kids are our kids. She has coached every single Unified team we have fielded since our inaugural track season in 20-16. She leads our Best Buddies chapter. She pioneered a peer-led inclusive PE class in our building that launches in August. She shows up—before school, after school, on weekends, when she's scheduled to be on vacation—and not because it’s in her contract, but because it’s her heart… it is her spirit. Maggie’s spirit is Perry Meridian. She refuses to see hurdles as limitations. She believes our kids can, and because she believes—we do too. Unified Sports is no longer a program at our school. It’s who we are. Because of Maggie, partners become best friends. Together, they play Xbox, go to prom, and crush anime club. They eat at Jaggers after football games. They don’t sit at special tables or wait for special treatment. They…just…belong. Every Falcon is seen now. Every Falcon is valued now. Every Falcon is one of us—because Maggie made it so. And while we compete for trophies and hang banners. Maggie’s teams chase something deeper—friendship, dignity, joy. She even helps other schools build programs strong enough to compete against us, because to Maggie, it’s never about just winning. It’s about including. Maggie Cooper has led an inclusion revolution so powerful, so pure, that we no longer need to ask, “How should we treat someone different?” Now, everyone is simply… a Falcon - NO extra label needed. It is my great honor to introduce my friend, our coach, and the 20-25 Spirit of Unified Coach recipient—Maggie Cooper.