Catching Up With ... Mackenzie Cooney (CMS Football Class of 2019)
As a follow-up to our Championship Memories Saturday feature, where current CMS student-athletes look back on the championships they have won during their collegiate athletic careers, we will be occasionally be conducting a question and answer session with recent alumni from those title teams, as they too discuss their memories, as well as how their experiences as student-athletes have helped prepare them for life after college.
Our latest CMS Alumni q+a is with Mackenzie Cooney, one of the seniors on the CMS Football team, which won the program's first SCIAC title in 31 years and earned its first-ever NCAA Division III Tournament bid (Saturday's feature story). Cooney was one of the captains of the team as a starting defensive back, and helped establish the culture that led to the championship. He also got to play in the same defensive backfield as his younger brother Benjamin Cooney, who emerged as a starting defensive back as well, with the two Cooney brothers winning a title in their only collegiate season together. Mackenzie Cooney is now working as an associate at KPMG, a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations, where he is using some of his life lessons from football in the professional world.
Read below to catch up with Mackenzie Cooney, his memories of his CMS Football experience, and the start of his life after college.
CMS: How much did going out by winning the SCIAC Championship your senior year mean to you personally?
MC: Personally it meant everything to me. Winning SCIAC was the number one goal our team had since my freshman year and to be able to finally accomplish it after coming so close two years meant everything.
CMS: What is your favorite memory from the championship season that you think you will always keep with you?
MC: My favorite memory from the championship season was beating Chapman to clinch the SCIAC championship on Senior Day. My entire family was at the game and it was the last home game I was able to play with my brother on the field. Being able to share that moment and celebrate with the seniors I had fought with for four years, will always remain as one of my favorite memories.
CMS: Now that a little time has passed, how proud are you of what you and the team were able to accomplish, especially making program history?
MC: I am very proud of what our team was able to accomplish. We made a huge culture shift from when I first got on campus and made it our mindset that we expect to compete for a SCIAC championship every year. During that championship year I felt an energy and determination that did not exist my first three years. Especially being a senior and it being my second term as a captain, I felt I owed it to everyone on the team to make sure we gave it everything we had. The team we had was prepared to do uncomfortable and inconvenient tasks to win games, to challenge ideas and philosophies for the better, and created relationships that will last a lifetime.
CMS: What are you doing now?
MC: I am currently an Associate at KPMG in their Advisory practice. We offer a vast number of industries management consulting services to optimize their business operations, implement various technologies/softwares, and roadmap their future or target business models. I am very happy where I am and grateful for the people I have met in the last year and half I have been with the firm.
CMS: How was Claremont McKenna able to prepare you for life after college?
MC: Claremont does a great job in preparing students for life after college. I truly believe the small class size, diversity of opinion, and challenging courses allow students to grow their way in thinking. Life after college takes a lot of adaptation to the certain roles you may undertake and the ability to think through different situations or questions helps Claremont students stand out.
CMS: What lessons did you learn from playing football that you hope to keep with you during your professional career?
MC: I believe football offers three major lessons. 1) The ability to coexist with a vastly diverse set of opinions. By coexist I mean, the ability to challenge and understand the different backgrounds, ideologies, and likes/dislikes of 60+ guys. 2) Understanding everyone has a major role to play in the success of the collective or team. There are over 35 guys on one team preparing roughly 24 (give or take) guys to play on Saturday. The 35+ teammates understand their job is to prepare a set group of individuals to be the best they can on Saturday and swallow their pride of not playing during the game. 3) Vulnerability. The first and most frequent reason I have seen another guy cry was because of football. Football takes a great deal of emotion, passion, and sacrifice to play. I think all three of these are very important to carry forward through a professional career. It's important as ever right now to challenge yourself and others' ideas, to understand your role in making your work team be as successful as possible, and to be passionate about what you do.