Raising Arch: How Cooper and Ellen prepared Texas' QB for the Manning family spotlight

New York Times

4 hours ago

Cooper Manning began to suspect his oldest son might be a gifted athlete when in elementary school. He noticed Arch could really throw and was always able to run around and make plays in flag football. But even when Arch was only 4 or 5, there was something different about him.
Whenever he'd go to a Colts game to watch his Uncle Peyton or a Giants game to see his Uncle Eli, the little kid would sit there riveted from start to finish.
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'He never wanted to go run around in the halls or go eat popcorn and nachos,' Cooper said. 'He'd just watch football like he was in a trance.'
At home, Arch didn't play video games. He wanted to go outside and play catch, shoot hoops or have his dad hit him fly balls.
'We threw more footballs in the den over his mother's head while a football game was going on, and she'd be like, 'Please don't do this — oh, here comes a lamp!' And she was right,' Cooper said. 'There was always something getting broken.'
Now, Arch is 21, a former top-ranked recruit from New Orleans entering his third season at Texas but first as starter after patiently waiting behind Quinn Ewers. He's made two spot starts in his first two seasons, but the Longhorns could top preseason polls in large part because of excitement around the 6-foot-4, 225-pound redshirt sophomore. Behind the scenes, Arch has drawn rave reviews from coaches for his football intelligence, athleticism and make-up.
But Cooper, the oldest of former Saints star quarterback Archie Manning's three sons, wasn't about to go telling anyone that his kid was some athletic prodigy growing up. Being the Next Manning meant he didn't need to say anything like that on his own.
'You never wanna be that dad who says his son is really something special,' he said. 'When you share that with someone, you sound like a lunatic.'
When you're from football's first family of quarterbacks, that kind of thing is already baked in, whether you want all that comes with it or not.
Cooper wasn't a quarterback like his dad or younger brothers. The 51-year-old entrepreneur/television personality was a gifted wide receiver who signed to play at Ole Miss, his father's alma mater. But as a freshman, he felt numbness in his fingers and toes during training camp. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spine and pinching of the nerves that meant the end of his playing career.
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As Cooper's children were growing up, he watched as his kid brothers blossomed into football icons. Peyton was the wizard who had the answers to every defensive scheme and adjustment whenever he dropped back to pass. Eli was the unflappable one who always seemed to be at his best when the spotlight was brightest. Eli led the Giants to two Super Bowls and was named MVP in both games. Peyton, a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer, won five NFL MVPs and two Super Bowls.
People assume that the two former NFL stars have mentored their nephew, but that wasn't so much the case. Archie's been around a lot and always has been, said Arch's mother, Ellen, 'but really, Coop taught Arch how to play football.'
Ellen and Cooper realize that doesn't make for a good story. Or draw as many eyeballs.
'As much as they are great influences, they weren't around a ton,' Cooper said. 'I don't think Eli ever saw Arch play a high school or college football game. He is coming in this year. Peyton would come in for a game or two occasionally. Arch would see them at the Manning Passing Academy and may see 'em at Mardi Gras, but that's like five nights in a year, so it's hard to say whether he's 'like them or like someone else.'
'I do think you can pick up little pieces of people that you like. Arch is probably just as likely to pick up a habit of Patrick Mahomes as he is of Eli with things that you just like about people and the way they handle themselves. And fortunately, anybody who watches anything can get more exposure to players they like and want to mimic.'
Arch is actually much faster than either of his famous uncles. Cooper said Arch gets his speed from his mom. Ellen was the track star in the family, an all-district selection as a high-jumper in New Orleans who led her high school to its first state title in volleyball and was inducted into its sports hall of fame.
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Ask Cooper about how he and Ellen raised their children knowing the challenges that would come with the hype associated with being Mannings, and he can't help but laugh, knowing that he and his brothers didn't grow up in an era of social media and cellphones with cameras.
They decided they'd deflect all the early attention on Arch as best as they could. It helped that New Orleans offered a more laidback, easygoing vibe than most places. It also helped that Arch, from a young age, never wanted any of it.
But that didn't stop college coaches from calling as early as sixth grade trying to talk about scholarships.
'I was like, 'We're not having any of this scholarship stuff,'' Cooper said. ''This is ridiculous. He doesn't even have braces yet.''
Cooper and Ellen, who is an attorney, set up ground rules raising their three children, May, Arch and Heid. When it came to cellphones and curfews, the Manning kids had a lot less flexibility than most of their friends did. They didn't get cellphones until middle school. Even then, cellphones couldn't be used at dinner. And until they were in the 11th grade, they had to charge their phones at night in their parents' bedroom.
'Did they bitch and complain about it? Sure, they did,' Ellen said. 'But I mention that to other people and they say, 'Oh, I can't get my kid's face out of the screen,' and my response is, 'Well, take it away from 'em! It's like they're scared to do that.
'We never were scared to enforce the rules that we put in place for them because we believed in them.'
They had seen how social media had come into vogue and didn't love where some of that could be headed. Though their kids complained about restrictions, Ellen said, they've come to look back and appreciate it.
'It was all a distraction,' Cooper said. 'I just saw too many people taking their kids to dinner and everybody else was talking and the kids are on their phones. I thought, we're not having this junk. I was a little old-school, kind of copying my dad. We're not playing video games. Get outside and go play. I don't care, you're not hanging around here just swiping and thumbing through some useless, endless stuff.
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'Arch was kind of wired that way anyhow so it made it easier.'
Cooper remembers Arch protesting that he couldn't stay out until 11 o'clock in high school, saying friends' parents let their sons come home later.
But then he'd say: 'I didn't really wanna go out anyway. I was just testing y'all.'
The irony is that now that all three kids have gone off to college — Heid is at Texas with Arch and May graduated this spring from Virginia — when they come home to New Orleans, they'll spot their old man thumbing away on his phone.
Dad! Enough with the phone!
'I'll lie and say I'm doing something work-related,' Cooper said, 'but now it's reversed, and they make me put it away for hours, so that's good.'
When Arch's recruitment began in earnest while at Isidore Newman School, Ellen and Cooper were thorough in how he chose where he went to college. They took visits to Clemson, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Ole Miss and LSU.
They ended up going to Alabama, Texas and Georgia four times each before Arch chose to play for Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns ahead of his senior season.
'When you're 16, you don't know what college is like, much less what the locker room is like, what the coaches are like, what the meetings are like, what practices are like, what it's like to be going to classes in the summer — all that stuff,' Cooper said. 'The more you get exposed to, the more you can make a relatively educated decision on where you can see yourself going, and if things may go wrong, you're not gonna get homesick and think, 'Golly, I screwed up.'
'We're just the concierge, you get to figure out what feels right to you.'
After making brief appearances as a freshman in 2023, Arch played in 10 games last season, starting two when Ewers was injured. The younger Manning was impressive in limited time, getting into 10 games. He completed 68 percent of his passes, going 61-for-90 for 939 yards with nine touchdowns and two interceptions. More impressively, he completed over 78 percent on third downs and 85 percent in the red zone. He also ran for 108 yards and four touchdowns for a Texas team that made it to the College Football Playoff semifinals for the second consecutive season.
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The Mannings are well aware that Arch is a hot-button subject — and has been since he got to Texas (and even before that). They appreciate how UT has handled him. He's been there for two and a half years and been available for interviews just five times: once during Sugar Bowl media day in his freshman year, another time for Cotton Bowl media last year, once this spring and twice after his two starts last fall.
Cooper set his phone up to get Google Alerts daily for articles mentioning Arch, but for as many as there are, he's realized there's rarely anything to them.
'There's not really anything new because he's not saying anything, and no one is really saying anything with new information,' he said. 'It's just recycled stuff. He's kept his head down and kept a low-profile, so when he does something, it kinda matters.
'I think they've done a great job of protecting him, developing him, and letting him be a regular kid as best you can. Now, when the time is right, you're ready to go, you're ready to go. Playing is good, but playing when you're really ready and prepared usually works out better, in every league.'
Cooper is also proud to say that Arch was never on social media growing up. His first tweet didn't come until June 23, 2022, when he announced his commitment to Texas. It has been retweeted over 35,000 times and liked over 200,000 times. He's tweeted only four times in the three years since. He's slightly more active on Instagram, where he has posted 16 times. He doesn't read a lot of the stuff on social media, either, Cooper said, adding that they 'don't ever discuss' the things being talked about or written about him.
Committed to the University of Texas. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/jHYbjBaF5K
— Arch Manning (@ArchManning) June 23, 2022
It's all part of the careful curation of a quarterback, and of a young man, at a time when not everything can be controlled.
Arch, who is majoring in communication and leadership, can't help but encounter some unique challenges no one else in his family faced. Like, how do you handle when you're walking to class and realize you're being filmed? Or every time when you go out to eat?
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'He struggles with that right now,' Ellen said. 'Especially when he's in Austin, he feels like he can't go out because everybody wants to take a picture. He said it's not even the ones that are coming up and saying, 'Hey, can I get a picture?' He's always been very gracious about that. He learned that from his grandfather. You always take the time to take a picture, talk to a fan.
'But it's the people who are filming him from across the quad when he walks to class. That's the most awkward thing for him. He calls me: 'Mom, will you just talk to me while I'm walking to class because this is so awkward. I don't know whether to wave and smile.''
Still, Cooper said the biggest area he thinks Arch has grown since going to Austin is his independence.
As a kid, he struggled getting up early, whether for school or for an 8 a.m. baseball tournament an hour away. He quickly learned he needed to take initiative in Austin.
'When you don't have someone nagging you, who you know is gonna bail you out,' Cooper said, 'all of a sudden, you grow up.'
Arch gushed to his father about Kelvin Banks, the All-American Texas left tackle, who he said might be the best teammate he'll ever have — and provided stiff competition to be the first one at 6 a.m. workouts.
'He said Kelvin's always the first one in,' Cooper recalled, 'so he said, 'I started trying to beat him in. I'd get there 10 minutes earlier than him, but Kelvin had gotten there 20 minutes earlier. It was like this unspoken rule —No, no, no, no one is gonna be in before me.' He just takes it seriously, which is good.'
Banks is gone, taken with the No. 9 pick in the NFL Draft by the Saints in April. With Ewers gone, too, there's no doubt it's Arch's team now.
He's come a long way from scrambling to get to those 8 a.m. youth baseball tournaments. Though he's set up to succeed, what happens next?
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It's up to Arch Manning.
'That's what you do as a parent — you do your best, and then hope when you send them off to college, they've absorbed some of the things you instilled in them,' Cooper said, 'but you can't micromanage anything.'
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Kevin C. Cox / Getty, Icon Sportswire / Getty, Wesley Hitt / Getty)