About Leigh
At a very early age Leigh showed outstanding athletic potential. She loved being strong and would do pushups and situps with me at night. Her first competitive sport was gymnastics. Her strength and courage enabled her to do well competitively, but she did not have the grace and flexibility to be an elite gymnast. When she was 13 we moved to Puerto Rico, and she joined a highly competitive swim team. She also began running, a sport she quickly grew to love and at which she excelled. The strength she had developed from pushups, situps, and gymnastics, plus the aerobic capacity developed from swimming became tremendous assets in her running. Unfortunately, she developed an eating disorder which stayed with her through high school and into college, seriously sabotaging her potential. On September 29, 1989, while a junior at Appalachian State University, Leigh was abducted at gunpoint by a man who five days earlier had abducted and murdered another young woman in Boone, North Carolina. Her abductor drove her to a remote mountain logging road, and while brutally assaulting her sexually, tortured her by describing in detail how he had murdered Jeni Gray. He told Leigh she would have to die a slow and painful death as had Jeni. But he had picked the wrong girl this time. After three hours of hell, Leigh outsmarted him and managed to escape. With her help, before the night was over Daniel Lee was in custody. Leigh was the key witness at his trial where he was sentenced to death. Leigh returned to ASU where she became one of the greatest distance runners in Southern Conference history, winning the 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meter races in a two-day period at the Southern Conference Outdoor Track Championship. She dedicated her life to helping victims regain control of their lives. She became one of the greatest high school cross-country coaches in North Carolina, she changed lives in the classroom as a high school teacher by turning young people onto fitness, and she shared her story of survival in the classroom, on national TV, in local and national magazines, and at rallies and speaking engagements. Leigh knew that her story might help others gain strength and shed the victim identity. She began writing her life story, “Finding Strong,” in the Summer of 2012. Six months later she died of MRSA pneumonia. Leigh is a member of the Appalachian State University Athletic Hall of Fame and the Watauga County Sports Hall of Fame. Read about Leigh’s life at
www.amazon.com/Finding-Strong-Claude-Cooper/dp/153953703X
