Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Essential Owls: Akbar Cook
7/2/2020 12:00:00 AM | General, Men's Basketball
"Essential Owls" is a series of features highlighting former FAU student-athletes who are working in a host of professions attempting to stem the impact of the COVID-19 virus.
The first subject of our series, "Essential Owls," is former men's basketball player Akbar Cook. Cook is a principal at West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, where he gained notoriety long before March of 2020.
Cook, who spent four years at the school as an assistant principal before being elevated to the head job, saw a need among his students that needed to be addressed.
After learning that many of his students, who he refers to as his "babies," were unable to do laundry at home, Cook had industrial washers and dryers installed on campus. That led to two appearances on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2018 and 2019, respectively, with the school receiving gifts totaling $100,000 from the show.
Additionally, Cook also established the "Lights On" program, which gave his students a safe place to hang out. The program ran on Friday nights during the school year and three times per week over the summer before catching the attention of Oprah Winfrey, whose $500,000 donation allowed the program to run five nights per week during the summer of 2019.
Cook was traveling abroad with his wife (former FAU women's basketball player Sheridan Andrews, who you can read more about here) when he received word that the school would possibly be shutting down due to COVID-19.
"We got back on March 12th and heard rumblings that (schools would be shutting down) and the next day, we were officially shut down."
That caused a number of issues for Cook's students, with the initial focus being on making sure they kept up with their academics.
"The first two weeks (of the shutdown), we were scrambling trying to make sure that (the students) had laptops, and working with the cable company to make sure they had connectivity at home. We work with Google Creative Labs, so we were already paperless, so that wasn't a hard transition."
However, it didn't take long to realize that some of the students had more pressing concerns.
"The school serves as an oasis for so many of the kids, they have so much going on at home that remote learning is too much for them. I had awesome students who weren't logging on (for their lessons)."
Once again, Cook came up with a creative solution to a unique problem.
"I created a call center of about 15 individuals, calling and doing wellness checks on the students. Not worrying about whether or not they were logging on, but just calling to see how they were doing. That's when we started to see the tide change a little, when we stopped worrying about whether or not they were doing their work and just making sure that they were doing OK and were eating."
Although the shutdown ended in-person classes, Cook soon revived the Lights On program to address the needs of his students outside the formal classroom setting.
"I restarted the Lights On program, because I was watching the news and there was a study in the United Kingdom that showed once they went on lockdown, child hunger went through the roof," said Cook. "A lot of people don't realize that when schools shut down, that's two meals that get taken away from kids that need it most. In my case, I feed my students at the end of the day and I send them home with a weekend worth of food, so if I took that away from my kids, they weren't eating at all."
Cook said that his superintendent estimated that in the first six weeks of the shutdown, the Lights On program and similarly modeled programs throughout the district had served more than half a million meals.
When asked if he has taken time to appreciate his accomplishments, Cook responded with the focus that garnered him so much well-earned attention.
"There's no time, I'm not there yet. I have so many things to do before I feel like I can pat myself on the back. Lightning struck more than once at Westside, between Ellen, Oprah, CNN and all these wonderful folks that keep the love going, but we're not done yet."
He does allow himself at least some reflection on what he's done, but that doesn't let it cloud his vision.
"It is surreal, I will say that. When you meet Oprah and hold her hand, and hugging Ellen, that stuff will never get old. But as soon I think I'm good and I've won the race, I could lose a kid's life."
Akbar Cook
The first subject of our series, "Essential Owls," is former men's basketball player Akbar Cook. Cook is a principal at West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, where he gained notoriety long before March of 2020.
Cook, who spent four years at the school as an assistant principal before being elevated to the head job, saw a need among his students that needed to be addressed.
After learning that many of his students, who he refers to as his "babies," were unable to do laundry at home, Cook had industrial washers and dryers installed on campus. That led to two appearances on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2018 and 2019, respectively, with the school receiving gifts totaling $100,000 from the show.
Additionally, Cook also established the "Lights On" program, which gave his students a safe place to hang out. The program ran on Friday nights during the school year and three times per week over the summer before catching the attention of Oprah Winfrey, whose $500,000 donation allowed the program to run five nights per week during the summer of 2019.
Cook was traveling abroad with his wife (former FAU women's basketball player Sheridan Andrews, who you can read more about here) when he received word that the school would possibly be shutting down due to COVID-19.
"We got back on March 12th and heard rumblings that (schools would be shutting down) and the next day, we were officially shut down."
That caused a number of issues for Cook's students, with the initial focus being on making sure they kept up with their academics.
"The first two weeks (of the shutdown), we were scrambling trying to make sure that (the students) had laptops, and working with the cable company to make sure they had connectivity at home. We work with Google Creative Labs, so we were already paperless, so that wasn't a hard transition."
However, it didn't take long to realize that some of the students had more pressing concerns.
"The school serves as an oasis for so many of the kids, they have so much going on at home that remote learning is too much for them. I had awesome students who weren't logging on (for their lessons)."
Once again, Cook came up with a creative solution to a unique problem.
"I created a call center of about 15 individuals, calling and doing wellness checks on the students. Not worrying about whether or not they were logging on, but just calling to see how they were doing. That's when we started to see the tide change a little, when we stopped worrying about whether or not they were doing their work and just making sure that they were doing OK and were eating."
Although the shutdown ended in-person classes, Cook soon revived the Lights On program to address the needs of his students outside the formal classroom setting.
"I restarted the Lights On program, because I was watching the news and there was a study in the United Kingdom that showed once they went on lockdown, child hunger went through the roof," said Cook. "A lot of people don't realize that when schools shut down, that's two meals that get taken away from kids that need it most. In my case, I feed my students at the end of the day and I send them home with a weekend worth of food, so if I took that away from my kids, they weren't eating at all."
Cook said that his superintendent estimated that in the first six weeks of the shutdown, the Lights On program and similarly modeled programs throughout the district had served more than half a million meals.
When asked if he has taken time to appreciate his accomplishments, Cook responded with the focus that garnered him so much well-earned attention.
"There's no time, I'm not there yet. I have so many things to do before I feel like I can pat myself on the back. Lightning struck more than once at Westside, between Ellen, Oprah, CNN and all these wonderful folks that keep the love going, but we're not done yet."
He does allow himself at least some reflection on what he's done, but that doesn't let it cloud his vision.
"It is surreal, I will say that. When you meet Oprah and hold her hand, and hugging Ellen, that stuff will never get old. But as soon I think I'm good and I've won the race, I could lose a kid's life."
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