Canadian fullback/fly-half Cooper Coats played in Major League Rugby during the 2025 season. He represented the NOLA Gold for his entire MLR career.

A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Coats was introduced to rugby while attending Citadel High School, and he had originally started playing soccer. Coats seemed to be a natural with a rugby ball, representing the Canada U18 team in 2014, within 6 months of picking up the sport. He represented the Canada U20 team in 2015 before attending Acadia University on a soccer scholarship. He continued to play club rugby with the Halifax Tars however, and has represented them on and off since 2016. Coats represented the Atlantic Rock in the 2017 Canadian Rugby Championship, before joining the Ontario Arrows in their exhibition season in 2018. The Arrows would then enter MLR in 2019 as the Toronto Arrows, but Coats did not join them as he was playing for the Canadian Sevens team, with whom he had made his debut in Cape Town in 2018.

Coats has represented the Canadian Sevens team in over a dozen World Sevens Series tournaments since 2018, and earned his test debut for the 15s team against Wales in 2021, scoring a try on his debut. Coats has earned 15 caps in red including during the 2024 Pacific Nations Cup, and was included in the Canada squad for their 2024 November tests.

On November 8th, 2024, the NOLA Gold announced the signing of Cooper Coats for the 2025 MLR season.

NARDB Player #1,323