Incredible journey has landed SEMO pass-rusher in Cape

Veteran Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz was none-too-pleased with the performance of his team following a recent practice – and he was crystal clear in letting his players know exactly how he felt.

Without question, senior defensive lineman Sam Cook was listening to the emotion and the words in his coach’s voice, however, more than likely, he wasn’t overly intimidated. That is because when you’ve followed the journey through life that Cook has, and it has been an interesting one, a bad day of football is important, but it isn’t life-altering.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The fact that Sam Cook is actually in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is something that only the Good Lord above could explain.

“I think about how different my life could be sometimes,” Cook said.

When Cook was a toddler in the West African country of Ghana (yes, you read that correctly), his parents both passed away.

“I don’t really have any memories of them,” Cook said.

He was being cared for in a “small village” when he was sent to an orphanage, where he lived under the care of a South African woman named Romana until he was five years old (with an asterisk, but more on that later).

At that point, you can take what you want from this story, but it’s difficult not to see the Divine intervention at play.

A man named Bud Reed, who resided in Neosho, Missouri, and has since passed away visited the orphanage on a mission trip. Reed was a family friend of a young married couple back in Neosho (Kim and Greg Cook), who was bouncing around the idea of either fostering a child or adopting one.

Unbeknownst to the Cooks, Reed had a premonition while visiting the orphanage.

“Bud said that he felt like he had been called to by God,” Sam explained, “that I should be (the Cook’s) son.”

When God directs you to do something, perhaps you should follow His command. So, with that in their mind, the Cooks flew to Ghana to begin the adoption process, which was “lengthy,” according to Sam.

The first step was taking Sam back to his native village, where the Cooks could be granted approval for the adoption by the village elders.

The second was learning about Sam, and vice versa.

Not only did the Cook’s not know of Sam’s backstory, but Sam didn’t know about it either. Down to minutia such as: How old is he?

“I don’t know the day I was born,” Sam explained. “When I was adopted, I had to get a new birth certificate made.”

The Cooks asked people in the village, who had a guess, and they looked at his dental records to (somewhat) narrow it down, before they decided October 1, 2002, would be a good day to call Sam’s birth date.

“I turn 21 in October,” Sam said.

The next step in the journey was to acclimate Sam, who had learned some English in the orphanage, into an American upbringing.

“I was raised in a Christian family,” Sam said. “I love my parents. I feel like they did a very good job of raising me. They taught me right from wrong, and good manners.

“They taught me how to be a good man and how to be respectful to people.”

At 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, Sam stands out athletically. However, being an African-American raised by a white family in Neosho (which has approximately a dozen African-Americans in the 12,000-person town) was also unique.

“There is not a lot of diversity,” Sam said of his hometown. “It’s a pretty small town. But when I was young, I didn’t think much about it. They were just my parents, and it was all that I really knew.

“I was just happy to have parents, and it was good to be loved. As I got older, I started to realize that this is different.”

“Different,” Sam says, but he is adamant that he had “a very good upbringing, a normal upbringing.”

On the football field, Cook, who is a Business Analytics major (he “likes numbers”), has been on a normal journey, unlike his life.

He played sparingly at Western Illinois through a redshirt season in 2020, and the following year in 2021. However, he burst onto the scene with 60 tackles, including six for a loss last fall.

“I can get after the quarterback,” Cook said.

From a team standpoint, in his three seasons in Macomb, Ill., Cook experienced just three victories, including an 0-11 2021 season.

“I felt like I needed a change of scenery,” Cook said.

He took an official visit to SEMO, which may win three games before Sam’s birthday, and felt a genuineness from both the Redhawk coaching staff, as well as the student-athletes.

“I got the sense that they were very real people,” Cook said. “They were very honest. They weren’t going to feed you lines and tell you what you wanted to hear.

“I appreciate that.”