Ken Denman

Cooper Kupp came out of Davis High School in Yakima with two scholarship offers. Idaho State and Eastern Washington. That was it. Two. He took Eastern Washington and went to Cheney, a small college town with a red turf football field. The summer before one of those seasons, he tried working landscaping in the afternoons on top of morning workouts. By the time the season started he was exhausted. He realized he couldn't do both. So football and school had to be the full-time job. Which left one problem. Somebody still had to pay for their life. Anna Croskrey had met Cooper at a track meet back in 2012, their senior year of high school. She handed him a medal. They started dating not long after. She started college at Arkansas. He was in Washington. Neither of them liked the distance, so she transferred to Eastern Washington to be near him. Then she got a job at a teriyaki place in Cheney called Rokko's and went to work. Full-time. While also being a full-time student. After practice, Cooper would drive his white Nissan Pathfinder across campus to the restaurant. That truck broke down constantly. Teammates who rode with him treated every trip as a coin flip. He'd get there and she'd be behind the cash register, or packing orders into styrofoam containers. "I supported us monetarily through college," Anna told ESPN, laughing about it years later, almost like she couldn't believe she'd pulled it off. "I was working full time so that he didn't have to worry about that, so that he could focus." They got married in 2015. He was 21. Still in college. Here's the moment that tells you exactly where they were financially. After the wedding, they went to the bank to merge their accounts. Anna's father came along, since he was a co-signer on hers. The teller pulled up Cooper's balance and said it out loud, in front of his brand new father-in-law. Three dollars. That was the whole account. Three dollars, a broken down Pathfinder, and a wife working a cash register so he could chase something that two colleges in America had been willing to bet on. He has never once pretended he did it himself. "Without a doubt, there's no doubt in my mind, not only would I not be here where I am today without her," Kupp said. "I really believe I may not be in this. I may not be in the NFL if it wasn't for her and what she has inspired in me and pushed me to do." The Rams took him 69th overall in 2017. He won Offensive Player of the Year. He won the receiving triple crown in 2021, leading the league in catches, yards and touchdowns. He won Super Bowl LVI and was named MVP of it. Then, after eight years, Los Angeles released him. Anna posted about it publicly. Not bitter, just honest about how disorienting it was. "Wherever we go, wherever we land, is going to be so lucky to have you in their building." Where they landed was Seattle. Three years, $45 million, back in the state where the whole thing started, about four hours from Cheney. And last season, the Seahawks beat the Rams in the NFC Championship game on their way to winning the Super Bowl. The team that let him go watched him go get another ring. A kid nobody recruited, a truck that wouldn't start, three dollars in the bank, and a woman working doubles at a teriyaki counter so he wouldn't have to think about any of it. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap