Over-rated!
The chant is hurled, seemingly endlessly, at elite college and professional athletes.
Kelly Flagg started to hear opposing fans shout it to her son, Cooper, when he was in the eighth grade.
“Cooper actually enjoys it when people taunt him,” his mother tells USA TODAY Sports. “It actually makes him play harder, kind of turns up the juice. And we always know, ‘Good, go ahead and talk.’ ”
Cooper Flagg, whose No.1-seeded Duke men’s team takes on No. 16 Mount St. Mary’s on Friday, has been under an even larger glare since he was in high school.
Kelly Flagg has become well known, too, as an outspoken supporter for her son and his team. She also has learned to deal with the hecklers … to a point.
During the team’s regular season finale at North Carolina, she made national headlines for a celebratory and retaliatory gesture directed toward Tar Heels fans after one of Cooper’s resounding dunks.
“People often go over the line and don’t recognize in the moment when they’re being unsportsmanlike, I guess,” she says of North Carolina fans, “and I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that as well.”
Flagg spoke with USA TODAY Sports’ Mackenzie Salmon, through her partnership with Dr. Scholl’s and the “Sole Support: Moms of Sports” campaign, about negotiating life as the mother of one of college basketball’s foremost stars and what’s it’s been like along the way.
She’s also a former youth coach of three basketball-playing boys, including Ace (Cooper’s twin brother) and Hunter.
We asked her for tips and observations for sports parents, whether our kids are just getting started, playing as high schoolers or are somewhere in between.
(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.)
‘Beyond our wildest dreams’: The Flagg goal with sports didn’t begin with the NBA
We know Cooper as Duke’s 6-9, 205-pound All-American expected to be the first pick in the upcoming NBA draft. We forget that he’s 18 and not far removed from the days when his mom started him out playing as a small-town kid from Maine.
It’s a close-knit state where his mom played college basketball, helping lead the Maine women’s team to its first NCAA Tournament win and an upset of No. 7-seeded Stanford in 1999.
She and her husband, Ralph, who played basketball at Eastern Maine Community College, simply felt the tug to put their kids in sports, like we do.
USA TODAY: Did you have any specific aspirations for Cooper and your other sons when you started them in sports?
Kelly Flagg: As a former athlete myself, I wanted to hope that I would have kids that would be into sports and love it as much as I did. All three of our boys really enjoyed basketball, but they played all sports. They played football, they played soccer, baseball. I had one kid that did track so we were all over the place when they were younger. It’s playing on multiple teams at the same time and just running from field to court to gym. That’s just what our family did. And I’m so excited that they were able to turn those passions into potential future. But dreaming of the NBA, that’s not something that has ever happened for kids from Maine. So what’s happening now, and the trajectory that Cooper’s on specifically, is kind of beyond what our wildest dreams were.
‘I just was reacting as a sports mom’: Root for the whole team, not just your child
Kelly’s viral moment at the UNC game came when she and Ralph were caught on camera yelling and gesturing that Cooper had dunked “on his head.”
‘I do realize it wasn’t my best look,” she wrote in part in a Facebook post. “However, if you actually know me and are a real friend of mine you weren’t shocked.”
As Cooper rose from Maine Gatorade Player of the Year as a freshman at Nokomis Regional High and Gatorade National Player of the year at Montverde Academy in Florida, she has fed off the energy of big crowds.
But if you watch her, she throws herself into what everyone on his team is doing, too.
USAT: As you know, fans get very, very passionate, especially in college basketball. Have you confronted a lot of hostile situations like the one at UNC?
KF: Every gym that he goes into, the other team, the opposing fans, are going to obviously try to rattle him and get under his skin. And it’s happened just about everywhere. I just was reacting as a sports mom, being excited in the moment for a really great play, and they’re unkind fans, doing unkind things. … I think, you know, sometimes it happens in the moment and people regret it after, but he doesn’t get bothered at all. I love that.
USAT: Is there anything that you’ve learned about yourself and following your sons’ sports careers?
I am very, very passionate. I want the whole team to succeed. It’s not just about my son, but I’ve grown to really care about all these boys, and I just love supporting all of them. And I’ve found that I have a hard time keeping my emotions in check sometimes because I’m so invested in them, and that’s really hard. I miss coaching. Because for a lot of years, and I will say, when you’re a coach, you feel like you have some control, and when just a mom, sometimes it’s a little bit harder to not be in control. So I think I like control.
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‘Don’t expect them to be perfect,’ and give your kid’s coach a chance
Kelly was assistant coach for her sons’ AAU basketball team starting when they were in grade school. She has come to appreciate autonomy: In allowing kids to deal with the ups and downs of sports on their own and allowing herself to let it go when she’s not calling the shots.
USAT: So what tips do you have for parents who are just getting their kids started in sports, or for parents who have high aspirations for their kids?
KF: I think the biggest thing is letting your kids fail. Learning to fail sometimes is the greatest motivator. But you know, it’s OK to make mistakes, because that’s how we learn and also keeps them hungry for the next opportunity. Don’t expect them to be perfect. And also, respecting the coaches and what their job is. It’s a really difficult job, and so I’ve always tried. I don’t talk to coaches, like telling them, oh, you should play my kid more, you should do this, or whatever. Unless they ask my opinion, of course.
Coach Steve: Three steps to deal with a ‘bad’ coach
‘You only get one shot at this’: Enjoy the ride, and the people your kids are becoming
Hunter, Kelly’s oldest son, played basketball at Nokomis Regional High. Ace, Cooper’s twin brother, is a senior forward at Greensboro (N.C.) Day School and is expected to play at the University of Maine.
It jolts her, and perhaps you, too, when those clips pop up when they were smaller. We realize how much we miss those days, and that maybe we worried a little too much about every on-field result instead of the experience we were all getting.
“We’re busy and we’re running around,’ she says, ‘being like, ‘Oh, not another practice, not another early morning,’ drive two hours away for three games and it’s taking up my whole weekend, but enjoy every minute of it. Take lots of video and lots of pictures. I didn’t. Part of that because I was coaching, and I missed a lot of those opportunities. It doesn’t last very long.”
USAT: What would you say you’re most proud of about Cooper?
KF: I’m most proud of who he is as a person, beyond him as an athlete and as a basketball player. He really is as kind and compassionate as he appears to be. And, it’s so nice to hear from other people that have met him or interacted with him, and they tell me like he’s such a genuinely good person; he cares about the people he meets. You know, a lot of the people at Duke are telling me. It’s amazing. He treats everyone with respect, from managers to the coaches to, his teammates, and for me as a mom, there’s no better compliment to hear like that he’s a good person, and that counts.
Love your kid. You only get one shot at this, and it goes by so fast.
Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.