"Giving to this endowment in [Dr. Cocke's] name really commemorates and preserves the legacy of everyone's favorite professor."
Longtime professor of English William T. “Willie” Cocke, C’51, was a warm, magnetic personality who “brought Shakespeare alive,” say Karen Jenkins Phillips and Mark “Moose” Phillips, both C’83. Cocke was also a man who understood students’ priorities. During the Phillipses’ time on the Mountain, daytime soap operas regularly drew crowds in campus common rooms. “We had Uncle Willie’s Shakespeare class at 11:10 a.m., and he’d let us leave a little early,” Moose says, “so both he and we could run to the Bishop’s Common and watch ‘All My Children’ at noon.”
In the years since their graduation, the Phillipses have bolstered a number of Sewanee programs and initiatives. Most recently, they landed on the opportunity to name an endowed scholarship after a favorite professor—and immediately chose to honor Cocke. “He was universally loved by the students, period,” Moose says. The William T. Cocke III Memorial Scholarship, which the Phillipses colloquially call the Uncle Willie Memorial Scholarship, will provide need-based financial assistance to an incoming freshman from Virginia, Alabama, or Tennessee, with preference for students interested in majoring in English or creative writing.
Interim Vice President for University Relations Jay Fisher, C’79, P’11, P’13, P’16, P’21, who helped the Phillipses set up their endowment, says the scholarship’s geographic focus was chosen in tribute to Cocke’s background. Cocke was born in Demopolis, Alabama and spent significant time in Virginia, his “family homeplace,” as Fisher describes it. “And, of course, Tennessee is where Dr. Cocke attended college, met and married his wife, Loulie, and spent most of his career,” Fisher says.
Though English wasn’t an academic focus for Karen or Moose, they say Cocke’s clear passion for the Bard—and for the Sewanee community—drew them in. “He enjoyed people so much,” Karen says. “We’d go back to Sewanee 20 years after graduating, and he’d still call us by name. It was like we were all part of one big family.”
Karen and Moose were a little like family even before they reached the Domain. They met as sixth-grade classmates in Charleston, South Carolina, and dated throughout high school. “I knew him before everyone started calling him Moose,” Karen says, noting she’s one of the few people who uses her husband’s given name. (It was Moose’s junior-high football coach who gave him the nickname. “One of Mark’s football friends then called me ‘Mrs. Moose,’” Karen says, “and I told [the friend], ‘No, that is not going to do.’”)
As a high-school upperclassman, Moose was introduced to Sewanee by a family friend, Fred Daniels, C’60. Daniels connected Phillips with former Sewanee Director of Admissions Albert Gooch, H’04, who “was the biggest salesman in the world,” Phillips says. After getting on board with Sewanee, Moose encouraged Karen to check it out too. “My mother and I visited in February,” she says. “The fog was so thick you couldn’t see across the street. I remember I had a tour of the campus, and I just fell in love.”
Initially, the Phillipses resisted attending Sewanee together. “The urban legend was, ‘You don’t want to go to college with your high-school sweetheart, because you’ll break up,’” Moose says. After some hesitation, they decided to take their chances—but they resolved to find their own, separate groups of friends and pursue independent interests. Karen majored in political science with a focus on international relations, pledged Theta Pi, and served on Sewanee’s Discipline Committee and Honor Council. She also joined her suitemates in starting a women’s soccer team, which competed on and off the plateau. “We actually beat the University of Alabama,” she says.
Moose was a psychology major and participated in the Green Ribbon Society, the Order of the Silver Spoon, and the Highlanders Society—but most of his free time was spent on McGee Field. During long practices, he bonded with former head football coach Horace Moore, P’84. “He was somebody whom everyone loved so much, they wanted to play well for him,” Moose says. “And we did—we won the [Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference] two out of my four years.”
After graduating from Sewanee, the Phillipses married and moved to Charleston to start their careers and family. Moose, who holds a JD from the University of South Carolina School of Law, now serves as a partner in the law firm of Nelson, Mullins, Riley, and Scarborough. Karen earned an MBA in finance from the University of South Carolina and works as a financial advisor. “Sewanee taught me how to think and how to analyze,” she says. “I use those skills in basically every part of my business career.”
Despite their distance from the Domain, the Phillipses have maintained a strong connection to their Sewanee mentors. In 1999, Karen arranged for Moose to travel to England with the University’s British Studies at Oxford program and participate in a one-week Shakespeare seminar taught by Cocke. Though Moose had studied abroad with the same program as a rising Sewanee junior, joining the excursion as an adult was especially meaningful, he says. “That was the summer that the movie Shakespeare in Love came out, and it was also the summer the Globe Theatre was reopened.” Cocke took the group to several plays, led them around Stratford-upon-Avon, and arranged a private workshop with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Cocke was also a star guest at the Phillipses’ 20th anniversary celebration in 2003. Held at Pearl’s in Monteagle, the gathering included not only Willie and Loulie Cocke, but also Horace and Novella Moore; former Professor of Spanish Eric Naylor, C’58; Professor Emeritus of English John Reishman; Professor Emeritus of English Bob Benson, P’95; and the Phillipses’ good friend David Maybank, C’83, P’16, P’26. “People who got there early begged us to let them sit at Willie Cocke’s table,” Moose says.
Jay Fisher majored in English and also remembers Cocke as influential. “When I was working with Moose and Karen on establishing this endowed scholarship, we reflected on the fond memories we had under Dr. Cocke’s tutelage,” he says. “We hope others who share those same fond memories might be inspired to add to this fund.”
When Cocke passed away in March 2018, Sewanee’s Facebook page filled with tributes. “There were many professors I admired, feared, revered,” wrote Dick Willis, C’78, P’11. “There were one or two I loved. God bless Dr. Cocke.” The Phillipses say they hope their endowed scholarship will help future Sewanee students connect with instructors who inspire similar affection and loyalty. “Every Sewanee alum has a professor they deeply admired, and Mark and I have chosen to honor Willie Cocke,” Karen says, “but giving to this endowment in his name really commemorates and preserves the legacy of everyone’s favorite professor.”
