You Probably Never Saw This: My Sit Down with USC Legend Cynthia Cooper-Dyke
On April 22, 2025, I had the opportunity to sit down with USC legend Cynthia Cooper for a podcast conversation. When I look back at that interview today, I see much more than an older video buried deep in my YouTube channel. I see a moment in time when I was still figuring out what all of this could become. The branding was different, the audience was smaller, and the larger vision had not completely taken shape yet. Somehow, right in the middle of that, Cynthia Cooper said yes to me. One of the greatest players in the history of women’s basketball agreed to sit down and talk basketball with me while I was still building. I appreciated it then, but I appreciate it even more now.
The response to that interview still amazes me. More than 7,000 people watched it, and more than 300 people liked the video. To this day, it remains the most liked video I have ever published on my channel. People found it, they watched it, and something about that conversation connected. Yet after everything I have produced since then, it slowly became buried beneath newer videos. Unless you were following me in April of 2025, or you have spent some serious time scrolling through my older content, you probably would not even know it was there. You might not even know it existed. That is one of the biggest reasons I decided to bring it back.
The timing makes it special to me too. My conversation with Cynthia happened before her appearance on All The Smoke with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, before another large basketball audience had the opportunity to hear more of her stories, her personality, and her incredible basketball journey. I had no idea any of that was coming. I was not thinking about where she might appear next. I was simply grateful that Cynthia Cooper was willing to sit down and have a conversation with me. Looking back now, I realize how meaningful that was. While I was still trying to understand where my own platform was going, I already had one of the most important figures in USC and women’s basketball history sitting across from me.
What I was building at the time looked very different from what exists today. This journey actually started on TikTok, where I would make USC women’s basketball game breakdowns, sometimes a couple of minutes, sometimes longer, simply talking about what I saw happening on the court. When I watch some of those early videos now, I can laugh. I was nervous, I was learning, and some of them were rough. Eventually, with a little push from someone else, I moved to YouTube and continued talking basketball. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking bigger. I did not have some perfect blueprint in front of me. All I really had was my sales and marketing background, a belief that I could build something meaningful, and one idea at a time.
Today, USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab is the larger media platform I am building, while Let’s Talk USC Women’s Basketball is the podcast under that platform. That distinction matters to me. I never wanted this to be simply another fan channel or a place where content was created around whatever storyline might get attention that day. I wanted it to be educational, factual, thoughtful, and rooted in basketball. I wanted people to come here and learn something. I wanted to tell the truth as best as I could, while still doing it in a positive and constructive way. When things within the program are not going as expected, I believe they should be discussed, but criticism does not have to become destruction. You can ask difficult questions without tearing people down. You can be honest while still being fair.
Originality and professionalism have also become important parts of what I want this platform to represent. We live in a media environment where it has become very easy to watch what someone else is doing, copy the idea, change a few things, and call it your own. That has never been what I wanted to build. I am old school in that respect. I believe in research, preparation, using your own voice, and bringing your own ideas to the table. Technology can help, but it should never replace your thinking or your identity. I also believe how you carry yourself matters. My years in the corporate world and in the military taught me professionalism. Being in front of a camera, hosting live conversations, and representing your own brand comes with responsibility. You can be passionate and opinionated without putting people down, becoming defensive, or losing sight of the kind of reputation you are trying to build.
For me, originality also means thinking bigger than your own platform. That is why some of my recent collaborations have meant so much to me. Collaborating with Captain Will, one of the largest voices covering South Carolina women’s basketball, was a bold move. People close to me asked why I would work with someone covering a competing school. Maybe it sounded crazy, but it worked. We brought two fan bases together, had a thoughtful and competitive basketball conversation, and we will do it again. The same is true of working with USCJ and bringing USC football and women’s basketball audiences together. Those opportunities only come after you have done the work to build your own credibility, but growth also requires vision. If you only stay in your lane, watch what everyone else is doing, and copy others, you may never create the growth you want. I want to keep asking, what can we do that has not been done? How can we grow the Media Lab, USC women’s basketball, and women’s basketball as a whole?
That same thinking led to the website, then merchandise, and now memberships are the next piece I will be talking about soon. There has always been a plan within the plan, but I have learned not to rush it. One idea at a time, one step at a time. What started with short game breakdowns has grown into something I am deeply proud of, and I am especially grateful for the respect USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab has received from people connected to USC and from voices in the larger women’s basketball and sports media community. Views and subscribers’ matter, but trust and respect mean something different to me. Those things have to be earned through preparation, accuracy, originality, consistency, and how you treat people.
None of it comes without work. I still have a regular job that pays the bills, and then there are all the hours that go into this platform, researching, writing, watching basketball, studying numbers, preparing interviews, editing, developing the website, and thinking about what comes next. I do it because I believe in what I am building. I also know that everything is not in my hands. God has been very good to me. There have been opportunities, relationships, and open doors that I could never have planned for myself. I believe what is meant to be will come when it is supposed to come. My responsibility is to keep working, keep preparing, stay grateful, and be ready.
And that brings me right back to Cynthia Cooper.
Going back and watching this interview gave me an opportunity to see where the platform was then and where it is now. Cynthia did not have to do my podcast. She did not have to give her time to someone whose platform was still developing. But she did. She showed up, answered my questions, shared her experiences and her basketball knowledge, and treated our conversation as if it mattered. I will never take that for granted.
So Cynthia, thank you. Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for giving me your time before USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab had become what it is today. Thank you for becoming part of this journey at a time when I was still figuring out exactly where that journey might lead.
That is why I decided to give this original video a new thumbnail, a new title, and another opportunity to be seen. I am not trying to make an old interview look new. It was recorded on April 22, 2025, and I am proud of that date. I am bringing it back because a meaningful conversation does not stop being meaningful because time has passed. More than 7,000 people watched it, more than 300 people liked it, and it remains the most liked video on my channel to this day.
For those who were there back then, thank you for being part of the beginning. For everyone who found USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab later, you probably never saw this.
You may not have even known it existed.
Now you do.
