If you have been following the remarkable 2022 National Football League playoffs, then you have probably heard quite a bit about Cooper Kupp, the all-world wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams.
I know. I know. Not many GetReligion readers are into sports, as Bobby Ross Jr., and I have bemoaned for quite a few years. But this Super Bowl thing is a pretty big deal in American culture and, once again, there’s a religion ghost linked to the life of one of the key players in The Big Game. Not that readers and viewers would know anything about that, based on the elite sports-media coverage.
You see, “crown” is the big word attached to Kupp right now. This year, he became only the fourth player in NFL history to win the “triple crown” as a wide receiver, leading the league in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns (click here for a Los Angeles Times profile that stresses this fact, “When it mattered most, Cooper Kupp again carried the Rams”).
Wait, there’s more. As this CBS Sports feature noted, Kupp also became the first NFL player EVER to have more than 2,000 receiving yards in the regular season and postseason combined.
The “crown” thing keeps showing up in those stories and many others like them, along with countless references to how selfless Kupp is and how much he and his wife Anna contribute to their community.
At some point, reporters need to read the message — mixing sports and faith — that is written on that signature hat that Kupp keeps wearing in press appearances. See this reference, care of Sports Spectrum — a Christian news website.
As he spoke, he sported a hat from his own apparel line. On one side of the hat it says, “Do it to get a crown that will last forever.” The phrase comes from the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 9:25, which says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
As always, it isn’t news, in and of itself, that Kupp is an outspoken Christian.
The key is that, when Kupp is asked to explain some of the characteristics that make him such an unusual player and person that he is — unheralded small-school player makes it big, with everyone noting his discipline and strong convictions — he almost always talks about the trinity of factors stressed on his website, as in “Faith, Family and Football.” This also affects the causes backed by the Kupps:
This year it was very evident that we would be highlighting the fight to end Human Trafficking. As we started researching specific organizations, Forever Found really stood out to us. We truly appreciate the work Forever Found does right here in our community (and abroad, in India), and could see how pure their desire was to help innocent children impacted by trafficking. The mission of Forever Found, specifically, is to prevent, rescue, and restore child trafficking victims.
There are hints, every now and then, that reporters know what is going on here. Consider the following, from from a feature at The Athletic, that works through Kupp’s entire season game by game. In this case, it’s crucial to know how crushed he was by the torn ACL injury to teammate Robert Woods. Here’s the passage:
Kupp struggled to keep his composure when speaking at the podium the day the news about Woods — one of his best friends, and his partner in the Rams offense — broke.
Kupp (at the podium): You play this game with a sense of freedom; you try to play this game as free as possible. You just take what God gave you, the passions he gave you, and just do your best to accentuate those and let it all hang out on the field because at the end of the day, you just don’t know what’s going to happen out there. I’m sick for Rob. But he played the game that way … he played free. He played hard. He left everything on the field. If something like this is going to happen, you want to be under those circumstances, where you’re going.
Pretty standard God talk or personal insight?
ESPN recently ran a long feature about Kupp that focused on his marriage, with the headline, “The making of Cooper Kupp: Los Angeles Rams receiver credits wife's inspiration for superstar turn.”
Catch the faith language here?
Kupp and then-Anna Croskrey met at a track meet as high school seniors.
"I knew that she was the one that I wanted to marry when we had first met back in high school," Kupp said. "I told my mom the day I met her, 'I'm going to marry this girl.'"
They began dating before Anna headed to the SEC, where she competed as a heptathlete at the University of Arkansas. But not long after, they decided the distance and separation was untenable.
Anna enrolled at Eastern Washington, losing nearly two years of course credits that wouldn't transfer and caused her to double-time it so she could graduate on time. She and Kupp, both grounded in their faith and family, became inseparable. …
It only seemed natural that they would get married the summer following her return. No need to wait.
"We just were so aligned in terms of what our goals were and what we wanted to do moving forward and what we wanted to be about as a couple," Kupp said. "And the belief that football was the community, was the place that I was supposed to be, that we were supposed to be, and that's where God placed us."
Later on, there is a reference to Anna reaching out, in friendship, to the rest of the college team.
However, isn’t there a word missing from this?
… On game days, Anna would put together goodie bags, with cookies and a passage or note written by Cooper, to set at players' lockers.
A “passage” from WHAT? The school’s playbook? Maybe an inspirational book by a coach? Or maybe the missing word in that sentence is “Bible,” as in, on game days “Anna would put together goodie bags, with cookies and a [Bible] passage or note written by Cooper, to set at players' lockers.”
You think that’s the ghost in that particular Kupp family tradition?
Just asking. Once again, why leave out the faith element of this kind of story if it’s pretty obvious that the player himself thinks his faith is at the heart of his own life and work?
FIRST IMAGE: The signature Cooper Kupp hat, featured at his own website.