‘All the little things he does – wow’: In a city filled with stars, Cooper Kupp shining bright by just being himself

LOS ANGELES – Will success change Cooper Kupp?

A better question might be whether Kupp and the Los Angeles Rams can win over the sports fans of America’s second-largest city.

So far, so good.

On Thursday afternoon, thousands of people poured into the Los Angeles Convention Center for what is called the Super Bowl Experience. Covering almost two city blocks, it includes an interactive theme park where fans can test their skills in the 40-yard dash, QB scramble and the field goal kick.

Next door is the NFL Store, where fans have a chance to test their loyalty by paying $200-plus for a genuine Super Bowl LVI jersey.

Guess whose jersey sold out first? Kupp’s No. 10, of course.

Seemingly unaffected by the bright lights, Kupp has become one himself as the Rams prepare for Sunday’s matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals.

“Right now my favorite player has to be Cooper Kupp,” said Maxwell Anderson, a Rams fan since the early 1990s. He drove to the event from Orange County with his wife and two children.

“He’s dynamic, so quick and shifty, and all the little things he does – wow,” Anderson said. “I can really respect the things he does.”

For another lifelong Rams fan, Mark Mendoza of Los Angeles, respect went beyond the field.

“What I admire most is his faith, and how he’s grown as a man,” Mendoza said.

The Yakima native also has grown in stature.

It began last spring when he and wife Anna plunked down $6.1 million on two homes: an offseason mansion in suburban Portland and a $4.1 million Mediterranean villa in a gated community west of L.A.

That’s hardly extravagant, considering Kupp is in the second year of a three-year contract totaling $47.2 million.

Those are big numbers, but Kupp backed them with one of the greatest statistical receiving seasons in NFL history: 145 catches, 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, leading the league in all three categories.

That was enough to earn Kupp the league’s Offensive MVP award, which was presented on Thursday night to a crowd of glitterati at the YouTube Theater.

“God is good, I’ll tell you what,” Kupp said. Then he sought out Anna in the crowd.

“She is my inspiration, and a stone-cold fox, too,” which is as off-color as it gets for Kupp.

Then he altered his route, thanking his family “who’ve been with me from the very beginning, and the coaches and players who’ve made it an absolute joy to come to work every single day.”

No doubt that joy would be redoubled by winning the Super Bowl. He’s just 28, but Kupp is mature enough to appreciate the journey more than the destination.

On Friday afternoon, media from around the world descended on the Rams’ training facility on the campus of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Kupp spoke hardly at all about the X’s and O’s of football. Instead, he talked of dreams.

“It’s something that I believed when I first stepped on the field for the first time,” Kupp told reporters. “When you’re a kid, you don’t dream small. No kid dreams about getting to the Super Bowl and not making the big play.”

Who wouldn’t cheer for that?

The renaissance of the Rams

Two weeks ago, the Rams punched their ticket to the Super Bowl by beating the visiting San Francisco 49ers. But something was missing: fans. Or at least friendly ones.

“Beat L.A., beat L.A.!” The chants rose from the scarlet-and-gold clad Niners fans, who easily outnumbered their hosts at Sofi Stadium.

“It did catch us off guard,” Rams coach Sean McVay acknowledged.

It was disconcerting – embarrassing, even – but not surprising, considering that the Rams only returned to L.A. in 2016, following a 22-year hiatus in St. Louis.

Los Angeles hasn’t seen an NFL championship since the Raiders won the 1984 Super Bowl, and the Rams’ lone Los Angeles championship came in 1951.

The old-timers never gave up hope.

“I’m always going to be a Rams fan,” said Martin Galindo of nearby Buena Park. “But I never lost hope, and when they came back, that was a dream come true.”

But their absence cost the Rams an entire generation of fans, some of whom have diverted their money toward watching the seven-time World Series champion Dodgers and the 17-time NBA champion Lakers.

Still, Kupp and the Rams are doing a good job of playing catch-up, even with season tickets costing at least $1,600 each.

In five seasons, McVay has delivered four playoff appearances, three division titles and two Super Bowl appearances. Much of the credit goes to Kupp, who’s become a fan favorite – second only to perennial all-pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald.

Few people appreciate the context more than Hollywood script writer Tim Kelleher, an Eastern Washington alum who lived in Southern California for 31 years before moving to Seattle in 2019.

“Even people with no association with Cooper, they are pulling for him,” said Kelleher, who wrote or produced episodes for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Arsenio Hall Show” and others.

“He’s one of those grinders, and all the press he’s getting makes you want to like the guy more,” Kelleher said. “And then there’s all the sacrifices he’s made … he’s someone who’s doing this because he wants to.”

Curtis Caddy, the vice president of the San Gabriel Valley Rams Booster Club, said he appreciates the little things Kupp brings to the field: consistency, and the eagerness to block – not usually a strength of wide receivers.

“He wants to play football, and that’s the kind of player we need,” Caddy said. “And he blocks, too.”

Kupp is a little hazy on the Rams’ history – he thought they’d only been gone for a dozen years – but has a clear vision for the franchise’s future.

“It’s pretty cool to see,” Kupp said Friday. “There’s a lot of Rams fans who grew up being fans, and now they get the opportunity to raise their kids as Rams fans.”

“That fan base gets to grow … we’ve seen it continue to grow and we think it’s just going to continue to get better as we continue to put good seasons together,” Kupp added.

Exceeding expectations on and off the field

Kupp is still something of an enigma to the casual fan. How did other teams pass him up? Why is he so slow? How does he keep getting open?

Kupp has done nothing but exceed expectations since the 2017 draft, which was preceded by his time of 4.62 seconds in the 40-yard dash. Some linemen were beating that, critics noted.

The Rams saw something in Kupp during his years at Eastern. For the draft, the Kupps rented a beach house in L.A. – a serendipitous choice as it turned out, because he went to the Rams in the third round.

Projected as a “decent” slot receiver, he surpassed those expectations every year despite a season-ending ACL injury in his second year that cost him a chance to play in the Super Bowl.

“When something is taken away from you, you appreciate this moment even more,” Kupp said last week.

Kupp had a breakout year in 2019, catching 94 balls for 1,161 yards and 10 touchdowns, which led to some eye-popping numbers when it came time for a new contract.

Based on his statistics this year, the Rams may have gotten a bargain.

Meanwhile, the Kupps and their two young boys went all-in on a $4.1 million home west of L.A. Located in Westlake Village, it’s 7,000 square feet of Mediterranean-style luxury. The neighbors include Heather Locklear, Disney CEO Bob Chapel and YouTube superstar Trisha Paytaz, who lives across the street.

The Kupps have spread the wealth, leading fundraising drives for needy kids, veterans and victims of human trafficking.

“There’s a lot of problems in this world that we’re trying to highlight, things that aren’t right,” Kupp said last week. “We want to be able to highlight those things.”

There have been tough times as well, all of them answered by Kupp’s grittiness and faith. The ACL injury required almost the entire offseason to repair, yet he came back stronger than ever.

In the fall of 2020, the family was split up after Cooper tested positive for COVID-19 during Anna’s second pregnancy. It was the longest separation of their marriage at a time when they desperately wanted to be together.

On Christmas morning, the couple got together via FaceTime, and was reunited for the birth of son Cypress in January 2021.

On the field, Kupp has quieted the doubters thanks to a work regimen and attention to detail that was chronicled in a Sports Illustrated piece titled “Nerdy as Hell.”

An excerpt from that story captures the essence of Kupp, the football scientist: “On some level, all receivers take similar approaches. But Kupp elevated hard work with his experiments, his process more thorough and encompassing. He also struck teammates as genuine in his bearing – fittingly, a word defined as a machine element that constrains relative motion to only the desired motion.”

The subject of Kupp’s speed – or lack thereof – hasn’t gone away, especially on social media. In a position where few players are white, the issue of race is ever-present – an unfounded implication that Black wide receivers are more “athletic” and “speedy,” and that whites compensate by working hard at their craft.

Beau Baldwin, the head coach at Eastern Washington during the Kupp years, had seen enough.

On Twitter last month, he implored fans and the media to “Please stop talking about Coop as being ‘Savvy’ or ‘crafty’….This guy can flat out play!”

‘There’s life happening outside of this’

The Super Bowl hype is ever present in Los Angeles.

As of Saturday morning, tickets were going for $2,800 apiece.

On Friday, the front page of The Los Angeles Times featured an intriguing story, with this headline: “Super Bowl jet setters are descending on Los Angeles. Who’s managing the private plane traffic jam?”

Kupp is staying grounded.

Friday’s media sessions were full of questions about the game, including one asking Kupp how the Cincinnati defensive coaches will try to contain him.

Kupp passed on that but waxed about the need to put this day in perspective.

“We’ve lived this life for a long time together,” Kupp said. “There’s life happening outside of this, and life doesn’t stop for these two weeks of the Super Bowl. The boys don’t know that it’s Super Bowl week.”

And even with the pull of anticipation toward Sunday’s game, Kupp reached out to his past.

He recalled the texts from former teammates at Eastern – “so many great people, coaches, too many to count, that have reached out, even the guys that came before my time there.”

He also reached out to family, thanking all of them before he and the Rams returned to the team hotel, where they were sequestered as a precaution against COVID-19.

There, the Rams will review game plans and make phone calls to loved ones.

“The last person I will call will probably be my wife, asking ‘how was your day, how long did it take to get them to bed?’’’ Kupp said.

Meanwhile, the relatives from Washington were staying in the “Family and Friends” hotel in Manhattan Beach. By Friday night, the nerves were showing.

Before she left Yakima, his mother, Karin, had her fingernails done in white, two of them highlighted with a bright blue “10” – Kupp’s jersey number.

His father, Craig, related how Cooper “was focused on the process, and that takes a little bit of the pressure off.”

Grandfather Jake Kupp, a former lineman with the New Orleans Saints, offered that “it’s very easy to get caught up in the hype.

“You hear about how good your opponent is, and you have to say ‘Hey, we’re pretty good, too.’ ”

His grandmother Carla perhaps captured the mood best: “God has been good to him this season, and I think no matter what happens, it’s not life and death, and that good will come out no matter what.”

Jim Allen can be reached at (509) 459-5437 or by email at jima@spokesman.com.