2025: The year of the white boy named Cooper.

(this post focuses primarily on American sports. If there is a white boy named cooper in another sport and I am not inclusive of him, please enlighten me.)

In the world of sports, 2025 so far has been an extraordinary year if you are white, male, and named Cooper.

First, in the world of basketball, Duke freshman Cooper Flagg averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game in the NCAA men’s basketball season. This earned him the title of ACC player of the year, as well as the Duke freshman season scoring record. He then proceeded to go first overall in the NBA draft in an extremely competitive draft class.

Secondly, on the football field, rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean won a super bowl ring with the Philadelphia Eagles, notably scoring a pick six in that game. While his individual accomplishments aren’t as impressive as the other two Coopers on this list, he did reach the greatest audience when Peter Kriebel (known by his TikTok, Pete Takes) composed a parody of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean about DeJean. https://youtube.com/shorts/VTkHx4qnizI?si=s8n0ZJUChI6seDbO

Thirdly (my personal favorite), a 16 year old Cooper from Texas did the single most impressive thing I’ve ever seen, possibly the greatest single achievement in track history, youth sports history, and even maybe sports history in general. Cooper Lutkenhaus at the USA Track and Field national championships ran a time of 1:42.27 for 800 meters. This time is over 4 seconds faster than any other 16 year old has ever run, faster than the fastest U18 athlete of all time by more than a second, competitive on the world stage in the fastest 800m era in history, and the 18th fastest time ever run. The time also makes him the 4th fastest american ever, and two of the anthletes ahead of him on that list were people he beat in this race. And yes, he qualified for team USA and will be racing at the world championships in Tokyo, becoming the youngest athlete ever on the men’s side to represent team USA track and field at a global championship.

The Year of the white boys named Cooper still has 4 months left and I am excited to see what they can do, or if any new Coopers will arise.