This story will appear on page 46 of the Football Game Program vs. Marist.

NEW YORK—Whenever first-year Lucas Mireur's alarm goes off at the crack of dawn and the last thing he wants to do is go to football workouts, instead yearning to shut it off, roll over and go back to sleep, he thinks of the late Jackson Coker. 
 
Then, rather than hit snooze, his feet quickly hit the floor.
 
How could he not get up and be grateful for the day ahead? Mireur was literally living the dream Coker had.
 
For Mireur, the hardest thing now is coping with Coker's absence. A year younger than Coker at Westlake High School, and after winning a state championship together in football-crazed Texas, Mireur followed Coker to Columbia.
 
After COVID-19 knocked out the 2019-20 athletic seasons and student athletes learned and trained remotely, Coker would have been stepping foot on campus as a Columbia student-athlete for the first time this summer. The Texas teammates would have been enjoying playing against each other in practice, with Mireur playing defensive back trying to cover an elusive wide receiver in Coker, and competing for an Ivy League Championship under legendary coach Al Bagnoli.
 
"It was really hard the first few weeks. I didn't know just about anybody. I kind of banked on him being here for sure. The more people I meet the easier it gets, but I think about him every day," Mireur said, choking back tears after a hot two-hour practice on the eve of starting classes in the waning days of training camp. "He's a motivation when I wake up and I don't want to come here at 630 a.m.
 
"I think he doesn't have the chance to."
 
***

Coker had his choice of the Ancient Eight. 
 
All eight Ivies offered the 5-11, 170 pounder to play wide receiver, but he'd fallen in love with Columbia's Morningside Campus when he was on a family vacation. Coker selected the New York City school stating that there was "no other place in the world that had the combination of education, location and level of football like Columbia does." 
 
Unfortunately, Coker never got to fully experience it. He passed away in a tragic automobile accident around 6 a.m. on March 10, in Austin, Texas.
 
Due to the COVID pandemic, Coker was spending his second semester at Columbia attending virtual classes in his hometown when his car rolled over and he was ejected from the vehicle on his way for an early morning workout. In normal circumstances, he would have been participating in spring football practice at Baker Athletics Complex.
 
A 2020 graduate of Westlake High School, Coker was a three-year varsity football letterman for Head Coach Todd Dodge. A First Team All-District selection as a senior in 2019, Coker earned Academic All-State honors and finished his three-year football career with 70 receptions for 1,298 yards and 20 touchdowns. As team captain, he led the Chaparrals to the Texas Class 6A state title, a 15-1 overall record, and 7-1 league record as a senior. He caught 28 passes for 437 yards and eight touchdowns, rushed 31 times for 225 yards and four touchdowns, and completed three passes for 56 yards as a senior. In addition, he helped guide the Chaparrals to district championships in both 2017 and 2018. Coker also competed in track and field and was heavily involved in a variety of volunteer activities in the community.
 
He was a hometown hero.
 
During Coker's recruitment, his high school coach told Bagnoli he was the glue that held the team together en route to a state title. The kid that was the last to leave the field after practice,  always working to improve.
 
"When you get to know the kid and kind of talk to the people around him, you understand he's  had a very unique work ethic," Bagnoli said. "All our kids work hard, but he was driven, probably more so than the majority of the kids that we come across and just had a work ethic that was through the roof, and led people, and showed by example, so everything that their coaches were saying, when we looked at it, you bought into it saying yeah, 'this kid is different,' and I just look at the tragedy; in the morning on the way to workout. It shows you that the kid in his fabric is really a football kid."
  
Enrolled at Columbia College, Coker planned to major in Economics/Political Science with the goal to attend law school. He is the son of Jon and Laura Coker and has two brothers Jake and Jared. 

***

Following Coker's funeral on the night of March 21, the gathering at the football field where Coker shined as a player was packed like it was a big Texas high school football under friday night lights.
 
That's the impact Coker had. He'd touched the whole town, and they all wanted to pay their respects, and grieve together as a community.
 
A contingent of Columbia was there, from players, to support staff to the head coach and Athletic Director.
 
"It was just weird because I always felt like I actually knew him, but I'd never met him in person, because he was just such a great guy," junior wide receiver Jack Ertz said. "And you could just tell how great of a guy he was based on how people were affected and how people took the news and were reacting at the service. It was great to see how many people love and support Jackson and wanted to see his dream to be lived out. It was amazing."
 
The Lions will honor Coker all season, with his initials (JC) and high school number (16) in the heart of Texas, on a sticker of the Lonestar State on the back of their helmet.
 
"It's very bittersweet to know that you know you're playing for something bigger, but at the same time, you know that he's not gonna be able to play football anymore," Ertz said. "It's very humbling to know that football is something that's very, very light in our lives; it's not our entire life, but it's something that comes and goes very much like the game of life in the grand scheme of things, and to know that we can do that for somebody else that's no longer with us is extraordinary."
 
Bagnoli hopes to have the Coker family attend a home game to honor their son in person. Fellow sophomore wide receiver Wills Meyer is among a slew of players making sure Coker's spirit lives on within the Lions locker room.
 
"We always ask, 'what is your why?' And I'm wearing eighty-six because he was going to be eighty-six," Meyer said. "I wear this chain with [his high school number] 16 on it just trying to make sure that he lives on here because this was his dream. So a lot of us even when we're having bad days, we just know that there's Jackson that wishes that he could be having bad days too."
 
Matt Sugam has been covering sports in the NYC Metropolitan area for over a decade. He has spent the last eight years covering college and professional sports as a freelancer for the Associated Press, while also contributing to The New York Times, Home News Tribune, Courier News, Asbury Park Press, Jersey Journal/NJ.com, SNY.tv, amongst others. He will be covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia's School of Professional Studies. Follow him on Twitter @MattSugam