SAN ANTONIO — Cooper Flagg has been at the center of college basketball all season, leading Duke to the Final Four, winning multiple player of the year awards and starring in numerous commercials.
His family has been by his side through everything — his grandma actually makes a cameo in one of those commercials — and is looking for a way to commemorate the 18-year-old’s historic season beyond all the hardware he’s brought home.
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So, naturally, his mom is planning to get a tattoo.
“What I said (after the regional) was, if we win the whole thing — I shouldn’t say if, I don’t like that word — when we win the whole thing, then we will get a tattoo to commemorate,” Kelly Flagg clarified Friday just before Cooper was presented with the Oscar Robertson award, given annually to the nation’s best player as voted on by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. “I’ll get a tattoo anywhere. He can pick the spot — except my face — if they do what they need to do.”
This was, it turns out, news to her son.
“Very interesting,” Cooper said, eyeing Kelly mischievously. “I’m going to have to carefully consider my options and really make a smart decision here on what I want to do, if I want to torture her or not. … I’m going to have to think about that one.”
Kelly leaned forward from her seat in the crowd and made eye contact with Cooper, who doesn’t sport any ink of his own.
“You take care of business Monday night,” she called from her chair, “and we’re all good.”
Duke meets Houston in the second national semifinal on Saturday. The winner of that game will advance to Monday’s title bout against the winner of the Florida-Auburn game.
The Flaggs — Kelly and husband Ralph, Cooper’s dad — have been fixtures at Duke all season, ringleaders of a group of family members who have formed a tight bond.
“Our parents have been incredible this year,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I’m not watching during the games, but you see after games, you hear when parents are rooting for other kids like they’re their own, it’s had such an impact on our guys with how they cheer for each other, how they want each other’s success. I think that’s harder and harder to find now.”
Longtime Maine residents, the Flaggs moved to Greensboro, N.C., this season, just an hour west of Durham. Kelly stressed to all of the players, and especially the ones far from home, that if they need a substitute mom, she’s available 24/7.
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“I have really beat the drum, ‘I’m their mom when their mom isn’t here,’” she said. “I try to fill that role for the boys, whether they need a hug or some reassurance.”
Or some home cooking. Though Kelly herself doesn’t provide that — “I’m a DoorDash queen,” she said — Cooper’s grandma, Evelyn Bowman, always comes through. (Yes, that’s the same one in the AT&T commercial.)
Evelyn’s specialties include lasagna and chocolate chip cookies, and she’s been known to send players home with “giant containers” full of goodies. Fellow freshman Khaman Maluach, a South Sudan native whose parents have not been able to travel to the States to see him play this season, is particularly enamored with lasagna.
The closeness felt by the Duke moms has extended to the dads and other family members, too. Scheyer’s daughter, 7-year-old Noa, even requested that “Duke Daughterhood” sweatshirts be made available ASAP.
And yet, Ralph Cooper wasn’t ready to commit to a permanent reminder should the Blue Devils win their sixth national title in program history.
Scheyer, however, volunteered someone else.
“I’m making my wife get a tattoo with them if that’s what’s going to happen,” he said, laughing. “I would even consider getting one if we win a national championship.”
Scheyer paused and smiled ruefully.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “That’s going to come back to me now.”
(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
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