With Hopper leading the Sagebrushers through the season of 1900, Nevada State posted a third consecutive winning season, the last consecutive streak until Ray Courtright's posted four consecutive, from 1919 to 1922. Nevada State went 4–2–1 under his tutelage, including their first ever win over a major "first team." Prior to this season, the Sagebrusher's primary opponents were small preparatory schools and the second teams of larger California universities. Those few times the 'Brushers faced a major, first team normally lead to crushing defeat. Hopper changed the tide forever by beating the Stanford "First Eleven", 6–0.
Later work
After coaching at California in 1904, Hopper went briefly to the Philippines for his career as an author for McClure's magazine. He was also a friend of novelist Jack London.
Personal life
Hopper was born in Paris, France to John Joseph Hopper, a native of Ireland, and his wife, Victoire Blanche Lefebvre. He attended schooling in Paris and later immigrated to the United States with his mother to California, where he completed his preliminary education. He married Mattie E. Leonard on September 21, 1901. He became a United States citizen in 1917. He is also a survivor of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. After his graduation from the University of California in 1898 James Hopper completed law school at the Hastings Law School. He passed the state bar examination but never practiced law. Instead worked as a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle, was on the staff of The Wave, a literary weekly and taught school for two years in the Philippines. About 1907 he and his wife moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California where his good friend, George Sterling, had established "Bohemia-by-the Sea". There he rented a house by the beach where he published stories that he hoped to sell to magazines. In Carmel many of his close associates were friends from his encounters at Coppa's “bohemian” restaurant in San Francisco, including: Harry Leon Wilson, Xavier Martinez, Arnold Genthe, Francis McComas and his wife Gene as well as Perry Newberry, Mary Hunter Austin, and Sinclair Lewis. When he left Carmel he returned to Oakland to write stories of his Philippine adventures for Sunset and other magazines.
