More than two years after Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper was lost at sea along with friends and fellow football players Corey Smith and Will Bleakley, Cooper’s dad is saying he doesn’t believe the only survivor’s account of what happened.
Nick Schuyler, who was found clinging to the fishing boat the four men were sharing three days after they went missing, has written a book to describe what happened. But Marquis’s father, Bruce Cooper, believes that Schuyler’s account is an untrue, self-serving story.
“The moment Nick hits the water, he becomes Superman,” Bruce Cooper said. “That defies what seasickness is.”
Cooper claims that he has looked into the matter and determined that Schuyler’s account isn’t physically possible.
“When Nick Schuyler is saying happened, it didn’t even go down like that -- I know that for a fact, and I wasn’t even out there, but I know that for a fact based on things that I’ve come across,” Bruce Cooper said. “This whole story was nothing but a big crock of bull.”
Cooper says there are inconsistencies in Schuyler’s story, but that’s not exactly surprising -- when you spend three days hanging onto a capsized boat for dear life, and the Coast Guard finds you starving and dehydrated, you’re probably not going to have a perfect minute-by-minute recollection of everything that happened.
The truth is, Bruce Cooper’s comments are more about a father’s grief than a serious analysis of what happened on that fishing trip that went horribly wrong. It’s easy to understand why Cooper can’t accept what happened, but it’s too bad that he feels the need to lash out at Schuyler.
