Alumni Highlights

August 2026 – Mike ’21 & ’23, Molly ’23 & ’24, and Maddy ’25 & ’26 McCook

The McCooks are our August 2026 Alumni Highlight!

For the McCook family, Shepherd University has always been more than a campus—it has been home. Mike ’21, MBA ’23, Molly ’23, MBA ’24, and Maddy ’25, MBA ’26 grew up immersed in Shepherd athletics through their father, longtime football coach Ernie McCook, and each forged their own path as students. Mike played football and now serves as Shepherd Athletics’ Coordinator for External Relations, while Molly competed in lacrosse and Maddy supported Shepherd Football through social media and marketing. Reflecting on their experiences, all three credited Shepherd’s close-knit community, meaningful relationships, and opportunities both inside and outside the classroom with shaping who they are today.

That foundation has fueled their professional success. Mike recently returned to his alma mater in a leadership role supporting fundraising and donor engagement for Shepherd Athletics, while sisters Molly and Maddy turned a shared love of coffee and entrepreneurship into Lightsome Coffee, a popular Hagerstown coffee trailer they built and launched with help from family and fellow Shepherd alumnus Timmy Townsend. Drawing on lessons learned through Shepherd’s MBA program, the sisters have grown the business rapidly and are preparing to open a permanent brick-and-mortar location. Together, the McCooks exemplify how Shepherd alumni continue to turn passion, community, and hard work into lasting impact.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Katie Swayne: Hey everybody, it’s Katie Swayne, Director of Alumni Affairs. We’re here again with our August Alumni Highlight. We have Mike Molly and Maddy McCook with us today, and of course, we have Randy Friend, our Alumni Association Board President, to lead our interviews. So, Randy, take it away!

Randy Friend: Sure, thanks, Katie, and good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back for another. We are very excited for today’s interview for a lot of reasons, but I’m excited to have these folks join us today to go through another one of our great interviews. As always, if you’re joining us again for another time, we love to get recommendations from folks. We’ll put some information here at the end around that, but I will let these 3 lovely individuals introduce themselves, and based on Katie’s rules, we’re going to go from oldest to youngest. So kick it off.

Mike McCook: Hi, everybody. My name is Mike McCook. I’m a Shepherd graduate of 2021 and 2022. I actually work here in the athletic department now at Shepherd University as the coordinator for external relations.

Molly & Maddy: I’m Molly McCook. I graduated from Shepherd in 2023 with my undergrad in sports marketing and finished with my master’s in business in 2024. And now my sister and I own a coffee shop.

Molly & Maddy: Hi everybody, I’m Maddy McCook, I’m the youngest. I graduated this past December in 2025 with my undergrad, and I’m finishing up my master’s this December 2026, so I’m still enrolled in Shepherd.

Randy Friend: Maddy, what was your undergrad in?

Molly & Maddy: My undergrad was also in sports marketing. Recreation. Recreation, sports studies.

Randy Friend: Keeping it in the family business.

Molly & Maddy: Yeah.

Randy Friend: Love that.

Randy Friend: And then, are you doing an MBA also?

Molly & Maddy: I am.

Randy Friend: Beautiful.

Molly & Maddy: Yep.

Randy Friend: Love it. Awesome. Well, folks who are joining us, and may or may not know who you are, which, like, what rock did people crawl out from under? You all clearly are part of the McCook dynasty, that’s what I’ll refer to it as, and the lovely children of our head [football] coach, Ernie McCook. Knowing that Ernie’s been at Shepherd for, we’ll call it a few years. I don’t want to throw his age and time out there, right? Theone thing that I found so unique, and actually when Katie and I were talking about the three of you joining us, kind of excited me the most is normally, when we do these interviews, it is people who are alums that get to talk about how they discovered Shepherd, and what brought them to Shepherd. What I would love to hear from the three of you and your individual perspectives is what was it like growing up at Shepherd? Because you probably have one of the most unique perspectives of anybody who are alums of the university. So, whoever wants to go first around what was it like actually growing up at the university, and then ultimately choosing to go there? You know, obviously, knowing your parents, there probably was some discussions around why you should go there, but I will let you guys fill in the blanks for us.

Mike McCook: Yeah, Randy, I’ll go ahead and answer that. I’d say probably all three of us had our first steps in Ram Stadium as children. It’s kind of all we knew, Saturdays in the fall was a holiday for us every year. It was really important. You know, the enjoyment of that season for us really came down to whether Shepherd football won or not. So that was the most important.

Molly & Maddy: Excellent.

Mike McCook: For us, and then, it was just kind of all we knew. And it’s funny, though, what we knew most about Shepherd University was Ram Stadium and the Butcher Center with the one hall we would run up and down, that I’m working in now. It took me coming here as a freshman, or maybe even a sophomore, to learn where the library was, and everything else with that. So now we got a really good understanding of Shepherd University and everything that comes with it, and just the amazing community, the people that make this place great, and not just football. So that was my experience, and I think my sisters can kind of agree with that.

Molly & Maddy: Yeah.

Mike McCook: Add their own little twist on it.

Molly & Maddy: Yeah, I would say growing up around Shepherd University and in Shepherdstown was honestly amazing. Like, we were super blessed. Just being around football, obviously, we’re a big football family and we love it, but just the town itself is super cute, and it always kind of felt like home to us, and being able to go to college there was super cool, too.

Molly & Maddy: I’d have to just agree with that.

Randy Friend: Well, because it is, it’s such a unique perspective, right? Like, you don’t think about people… and Mike, I think you nailed it, right? I was curious of that, like, literally taking your first steps and things like that, right? Being somebody that worked at Shepherd, and obviously Katie’s been at Shepherd for a few years, like, we remember you guys being those little kids kind of running around, you know, with jerseys and cheerleading outfits on and all that stuff. But you guys really, in your own way, are part of the history of the university overall, right?

Molly & Maddy: Yeah, sure.

Randy Friend: Which then makes such an interesting thing of, like, making the decision to go there and, making it such a part of your individual lives even now, right? So, like, as you’ve kind of grown up and can take those steps and those types of things. I would love to be able to know, kind of, what, from your guys’ perspective, what was it like for you being students there, right? So, like, Mike, obviously, when people watch this, you knew where the library was on day one. I have no doubt about that, right? But, like, you know, getting to kind of know the rest of campus outside of those, what was that like for you guys in kind of exploring the other parts that the university had to offer.

Molly & Maddy: I was just going to say, so I also played lacrosse at Shepherd, and that was just a whole another aspect of the university that I got to kind of explore, like still in athletics, but I just loved that environment as well, and it was completely separate from football too. We had our girl team and it was girl run, and it was awesome, and then I still love the football side, and of course, the academics, getting to know where all the buildings were was really cool, and just walking through the campus, it’s beautiful, and you can’t complain about it at all.

Randy Friend: Yeah. And you guys all lived on campus, right?

Molly & Maddy: I commuted two years and we lived off campus.

Randy Friend: Okay, alright, so, but you were kind of not necessarily at home all the time.

Molly & Maddy: No, no, yes, yeah.

Randy Friend: Okay.

Mike McCook: I lived on campus for two years.

Randy Friend: Okay, so Mike, what was that like for you, kind of having that for 2 years, you said.

Mike McCook: Yep, I lived in Potomac and Yost for two years. It was awesome, you know. Great experience. It’s part of the college experience and moving away from home and kind of immersing yourself in an environment that you got to fend for yourself a little bit, you know. Had a great time, you know. I was the 1st group of students, freshman class, at Potomac, when it was built, so I was one of the first ones there. And then I met my roommate there. My freshman year roommate was my roommate for every single year, so that’s, you know, that’s something that, you know, it’s a bragging right.

Molly & Maddy: You’re lucky, yeah.

Mike McCook: You move in with your freshman roommate, and then you stay roommates for all the years.

Randy Friend: Pretty good.

Mike McCook: Socially, we felt we were super successful as a family, the three of us. Academically, I would say more so my sisters. And then athletically, playing football and lacrosse, and Maddy can speak to being in the administration of, you know, the social media team and marketing for the football team, so we kind of feel like we maximized our, time at Shepherd.

Randy Friend: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, now, each of you have finished the undergrad and done, obviously, the master’s degrees. Are all three of you doing the MBA program? Obviously, Maddy, you’re finishing up, so tell me your thoughts about that. Because this is actually a unique thing again that we don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk to people, or haven’t yet I should say, that kind of wrapped up the MBA program. What did you guys think about going that track as well.

Molly & Maddy: I thought it was a super cool opportunity, and clearly we all jumped on it, because it was kind of like a no-brainer to kind of broaden our education, and Michael’s still in the recreation and sports field. Maddy and I clearly we took the business route, and it’s kind of paid off for us to have the background in business and take those entrepreneurship classes that were definitely beneficial for getting the coffee business up and running. Especially throughout the past year, I’ve been still enrolled in these classes, so as I’m taking the classes and learning more about our own business, it’s been really cool.

Randy Friend: Yeah, and Mike, obviously for you, you’ve had to not only being a Shepherd, but some other experiences as well. Can you speak a little bit to, kind of, how maybe some of that helped you? And then, Molly and Maddy, I want to get back to you about the business side here in a minute, but we’ll let Mike speak.

Mike McCook: Yeah, you know, I was really lucky to work hand-in-hand with great mentors as Dr. Martz, Ben Martz, and Dr. Doval. They were really good leaders for me, and then kind of, you know, did the same thing for my two sisters. So those classes, especially in the MBA program, were great. And then, Stacy Kendig here in the sports and recreation department here, in the Butcher Center. Just we had enough help, we had a lot of people looking out for us, as they did for all the students, and that was just a great experience.

Randy Friend: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, Molly, Maddy, let’s jump into this business, right? So, everybody who’s watching today may or may not know about your business venture. I have been following, for a little bit on the social medias, which we’ll try to make sure we plug that. That was a really terrible statement – the social medias – like I’m talking about being on the internets. That’s great. Good thing we don’t miss any of this. So let us know what’s the deal with the coffee shop?

Molly & Maddy: So, after I graduated with my master’s, I was kind of playing around with what to do next, as everyone does after college. And I had my life savings, and I love to travel. I traveled a little bit. And then we came up with the idea — we worked at a coffee shop together, so we both had coffee experience, and we loved coffee, of course. Every time we travel, we would see different coffee shops and try them. We kind of always joked that we would own a coffee shop one day. Yeah. It’s like, it was like an ongoing joke.

Randy Friend: True.

Molly & Maddy: Retirement life, like, maybe later in life, just a bit of fun on the beach or something. Yeah. And then, out west, there’s these little coffee sheds everywhere. They’re in, like, every parking lot. And we were like, we should bring that to the East Coast. So, we started looking into sheds, and we were like, okay, how much will this cost. The entrepreneurship class really came in handy there. I used a lot of, resources that I had just learned and used, like, the semester before, or so, and I put a whole startup expense sheet together, and it was super cool.

Randy Friend: Nice.

Molly & Maddy: And I could see exactly what we needed to make this happen. And we found a camper. So we came up with the idea of a camper instead of the shed. The sheds were so much more expensive. Like, four times the cost of a camper shell that we could renovate ourselves. Yeah, so we bought that and then completely gutted it. The three of us, and my boyfriend Timmy, he helped us, and Michael helped a little bit, my mom. It was like a whole family thing. It was great. And we’ve gutted it, renovated it all entirely ourselves in our front yard and it was chaos, but it was really fun and it was really worth it. And then we started selling coffee out of it and it’s been really successful and it’s done really well for us. And now we’ve saved up over the past year, we’ve been open for a little over a year now, and we’ve been saving. Our landlord where we’re parked, where we have a permanent spot, he let us know a few months ago that they had a spot opening in their shopping center that’s behind where we’re parked, and he was like, would you guys be interested? And the camper, it’s a hassle. When you’re busy, there’s so much stocking and restocking, and it’s a lot to keep up with, so the stability of the electric and bathroom and heat and AC will be really wonderful for us, so we’re super excited for that, and we’re hoping that’ll happen. It’s in the process now, construction and everything, and the build-out, but we’re hoping to open that in September.

Randy Friend: Nice. Man, wow, that’s coming up quick!

Molly & Maddy: Yeah, yeah.

Randy Friend: Yeah, wow, okay. And so where’s that location at for folks who may not know?

Molly & Maddy: It’s off Sharpsburg Pike in Hagerstown. It’s on College Road. Yeah. It’s like an old shopping center.

Randy Friend: Nice.

Molly & Maddy: If you look up Lightsome Coffee, you’ll be able to find it. If you’re familiar with where St. James School is, it’s kind of where that is.

Randy Friend: Very, very good. So how did you come up with a name?

Molly & Maddy: Well, so we were kind of looking around, thinking of, like, different words that meant happiness and bright, good vibes. Yeah. Good vibes, you know? And we wanted something different, and we wanted something that, like, kind of would stick out and Lightsome is actually a word. It means carefree and lighthearted, and it’s kind of what we are going for. We just really liked it. Yeah, when we saw the word, we were kind of, like, researching different words, and it came up, we were like, oh, that’s kind of cute, it sounds like it has a good ring to it, it’s unique. Yeah. Not many people would know about it, most people are like, what? But it is a word.

Randy Friend: Yeah, I had no idea. So, I mean, I think it’s a great name for a coffee shop, right? Like, you kind of get things that are more caffeine, coffee related, right? Like, you know, you know, bean or whatever. Yeah.

Molly & Maddy: Yeah, bean something.

Randy Friend: Yes.

Molly & Maddy: It helps it stick out a little bit.

Randy Friend: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. So it’s very, very cool. I love that. So very, very cool. And so, Mike, obviously, you are stepping into this new role at Shepherd, right? You’ve been in this role for how long now?

Mike McCook: A little over 4 months.

Randy Friend: Okay. And so, exactly what role have you taken on in athletics now?

Mike McCook: Yeah, the title is Coordinator for External Relations. It’s, athletic development, fundraising, donor relations. It fits well for somebody who’s been lucky enough to kind of be immersed in the community and getting to know everybody that’s involved with Shepherd Athletics. And it’s fun. It’s easy to work hard for something you care so much about. Yeah. There’s a lot of alignment there with me personally and professionally, so this is a really awesome opportunity for me.

Randy Friend: Yeah, and I just recently got my Gridiron Club thing, so thanks, Mike, for sending that. I’ll be certain to send that back ASAP. But if somebody wants to, give money, how do they get a hold of Mike McCook?

Mike McCook: Yeah, they can go to, we have a couple different pages, but on the ShepherdRams.com athletic website, there’s an area on there you can find me, all my contact information and then also all of our specific sports teams links there to get to specific funds and teams, and campaigns. Then also the most important thing is just coming out to support our student athletes and in their competitions and paying attention to those schedules, and really just enjoying Shepherd Athletics.

Randy Friend: Nice. And, Mike, you’re not the only one who’s taking on a new experience, from what I understand, right? Like, your sisters are taking on the business, but you’re taking on a new role yourself, is that true?

Mike McCook: Yeah, I’m going to need a lot of free coffee to handle all this work, so I don’t know if that’s something that they can figure out for me. They already do. I get probably the most free coffee.

Randy Friend: Am I wrong? Did you not recently get married?

Mike McCook: Yes, yes, I got that too.

Randy Friend: Like, that’s the new role; we’re done with your work.

Mike McCook: Yes.

Randy Friend: Yeah, congratulations!

Mike McCook: Yeah, thank you. The best part is my home, you know, my wife Tori Lasson McCook, Tori McCook now.

Molly & Maddy: Wow.

Mike McCook: I’m getting ready to get in trouble. Tori McCook, she’s a Shepherd alum, lacrosse alum. So we met here at school.

Randy Friend: Nice.

Mike McCook: Yeah, so Shepherd’s given us a lot.

Randy Friend: Well, congratulations to both of you on that journey. Surprisingly, falling into the made up statistics of 80% of people that meet at Shepherd are going to get married to somebody from Shepherd. It’s a made up number. I don’t know that that’s a true stat, but it’s just somebody said it somewhere. But yes, congratulations to you. How is she falling into the fold of this whole McCook got to be ready for Saturday mornings?

Mike McCook: Yeah, so we started dating during school, during college, while I was still playing. So she got a little bit of a taste of that in my last two years.

Randy Friend: Nice.

Mike McCook: From there on out, she’s just about as big of a Ram fan as anybody. She’s accepted that role.

Randy Friend: [laughs]

Mike McCook: And she’s, she’s awesome.

Randy Friend: Jumped in both feet, I guess, right? As they say.

Mike McCook: Absolutely.

Randy Friend: Love that. So, as we kind of are wrapping things up here, one of the questions that we always ask everybody, and I’ll draw this question out to give you a second to kind of think about it. As you look back on your perspective of your time at Shepherd, both as a undergrad and grad student, obviously, Mike, for you working there now, and your entire time growing up there, which is super unique to all of you. We love to always think about what if you were to say to other either prospective students, current students, or even alums. What advice or things that stood out directly for you that made such an impact of you being at Shepherd that you would also hand that as advice or an example. If you have one either thought or story that you love to be able to share, we always love to kind of cap everything off with that. And you know what? I’m going to make Maddy go first, because I feel like she hasn’t gotten a chance to just step right in. So Maddy, if you got one thing or advice that you could give to a current student to say, this is what you should get out of it, what would that be?

Molly & Maddy: Definitely go to the football games on Saturdays.

Randy Friend: Good.

Molly & Maddy: I feel like a lot of you have to make it to the Shepherd football games. That was, like, probably my favorite experiences, and not just because I grew up with Shepherd football, but you’re just connecting with so many new people, and that’s, like, the best environment to be around, and not to be biased or anything, but…

Randy Friend: I love it.

Molly & Maddy: No, I think that was, like, my favorite memories were. And that was while I was in school. I mean, I had great memories growing up there, but.

Randy Friend: Of course.

Molly & Maddy: Yeah, I would say that everything is what you make of it and it’s the people that make the place and just surround yourself with good people, and go to the football games, and you’ll have a great time.

Randy Friend: I love that. Hey, Mike, for you.

Mike McCook: Yeah, obviously I totally agree with all of that, but I just think you can’t go wrong with putting yourself in situations that might seem pretty difficult or hard at the time or like, you know, taking that class that it’s going to be pretty difficult and then just understanding that everything from there is figure-out-able.

Randy Friend: Incredible, I love it.

Mike McCook: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Randy Friend: Oh, yeah.

Mike McCook: So, that would be my advice. And then also social success is almost, if not just as important as academic and athletic success too. So being around the community, and making friends and being a young person is every bit of the Shepherd experience that everybody should have.

Randy Friend: Wonderful. Well, I appreciate it, and I appreciate all three of you taking the time today. I know I could probably make this conversation go an entire hour, but I’m not going to make you guys go through that torture. Mike, you got fundraising to do, you know, obviously your dad wants you to perform high on the numbers that you’re bringing in. And Molly and Maddy, you have to get this shop up and running, so…

Molly & Maddy: Okay.

Randy Friend: I’m super excited for all three of you. Thank you guys so much for joining us. This is always a pleasure for Katie and I to do these things, and most importantly, hearing unique stories like yours. For those who are joining us again, obviously, if you know people that you would love to hear their story or share your own story, please reach out to us, reach out to Katie through all of our social media platforms, and we’ll be talking to you soon. Thanks, everybody!

Katie Swayne: Thank you guys!

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