Arch Manning's siblings provide support, camaraderie growing up in football's first family

New York Times

11 hours ago

Like many proud dads in the early 2000s, Cooper Manning often whipped out the camcorder to document his three children — May, Arch and Heid — growing up.
In one of the videos in the Manning family archives, Arch is participating but hangs in the background — clearly wanting May to stay in the spotlight while she dances front and center. In another, the kids are playing football in the family's New Orleans front yard, when 5-year-old Arch asks his dad to stop filming.
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'I said something like, 'Well, just keep your helmet on the whole time,'' Heid recalled telling his brother. 'And my parents always talk about it like, 'That's kind of how he is.' He honestly — just literally and metaphorically — just kind of wants to keep his helmet on. He's just not one for the spotlight. Just a shy, sweet kid.'
These days, cameras are everywhere on Texas' Forty Acres as everyone in Austin wants a piece of the quarterback who wears No. 16. No one enters the 2025 college football season with more pressure than Manning, who leads No. 1 Texas into No. 3 Ohio State in a blockbuster season opener next week, marking the true start to the Manning era after a hype-filled two-year prologue as Arch waited his turn behind Quinn Ewers.
But lucky for Arch (21), just like when they were kids, he has May (22) and Heid (19) — a sophomore alongside him at Texas — who form a faithful support system behind the scenes.
'My dad always made a joke, he was like, 'I'm glad Arch is the one who gets the attention because if Heid did, he'd be wearing a cape to school,'' Heid said.
'Which — is very much true.'
If anyone can understand the heft of being a Manning, the most famous name in football, it's his brother and sister. Fiercely loyal, wickedly funny and always there to cheer him on — no one knows Arch quite like them.
'Arch values our sibling relationship — I think we all value it,' May said. 'But I think especially Arch being in the position he is now … he's so adamant about making sure the three of us stay close.'
The Manning family has been in New Orleans for five decades, the surname made famous, of course, by Arch's grandfather, former NFL quarterback Archie Manning, and two Super Bowl-winning uncles, Peyton and Eli. Archie starred with the New Orleans Saints from 1971-82. He and his wife, Olivia, raised their three sons in the city, with Cooper, the eldest, eventually starting a family of his own in town with his wife Ellen.
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May was born in December 2002. Arch came along in April 2004. Heid completed the family in December 2005.
In some ways, the children's famous last name preceded them. In others, they were their own tight-knit little trio with their own identity, Arch serving as the glue.
'I get that question a lot, 'Did you understand the magnitude of (the Manning name?)'' Heid said. 'Yeah, we got it. But it was always May, Arch and Heid. It was never May Manning, Arch Manning, Heid Manning.
'It was never a moment where we were like, 'OK, we're Mannings.''
From a young age, Arch tried out all sorts of sports. Heid can vividly remember heading for the Lego aisle or looking at toys and movies as a 5-year-old on trips to Target, while Arch beelined to the sports department. When Heid asked for an Xbox or action figure for Christmas, Arch asked for a jersey or football. Always into something, Arch swam, played tennis, golf, basketball, baseball, football and even tried his hand at karate and gymnastics. On the baseball field, he often played with kids two and three years older. On the basketball court, he was able to dribble with his off hand before anyone else on the team.
A post shared by Cooper Manning (@coopermanning)
'He was just ahead of the curve,' Heid said.
'Everything was always about being better or trying to get better,' May said. 'And that's (been the case) since he was 10 years old.'
There was something about football, though.
If Heid and May were inside watching television after school, Arch was outside throwing the football or asking to run in the park. If Heid wanted to sit down for dinner after a hard practice at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans — where he snapped to his brother as the varsity football team's center — Arch wanted to get 50 more snaps in before he ate. He was relentlessly motivated, May said. And between his grandfather, uncles and father, Arch very much understood how to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that surrounded him.
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As Arch progressed through Newman — where his father and uncles all played — May knew her brother might be onto something when she sat in the stands and watched him become the school's first freshman starter at QB in four decades. The Greenies went 9-2 that year, with Arch throwing for 2,500-plus yards en route to earning Freshman All-America honors from MaxPreps. He kept things going as a sophomore during the COVID-19 season, and by the end of his junior year, he emerged as the can't-miss five-star recruit who every school in the country wanted.
Off at the University of Virginia, May missed most of her brother's recruitment — a national circus that saw college coaches showing up to the Newman playground just to see if they could catch a glimpse of Manning through a window.
But she knew things were serious when Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and, of course, Texas all got in on the action. Heid, on the other hand, had a front-row seat to the process and could tell that a big city like Austin would offer his brother a level of privacy that traditional college towns couldn't.
In typical Arch style, he didn't make a big deal about his commitment, simply letting the world know that Texas was the choice with his first-ever tweet.
Committed to the University of Texas. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/jHYbjBaF5K
— Arch Manning (@ArchManning) June 23, 2022
Last season, the two brothers met for dinner as often as possible, even when Arch was busy with football and Heid was pledging a fraternity. They'd laugh together over Tex-Mex at Cabo Bob's or Maudies, their favorite spots, where no one could take Arch's mind off of everything around him quite like Heid.
'(That was) a big thing for me,' Arch said in an interview with The Athletic last month. 'Laughing, not talking about football, was always good for me because as you know, nowadays, it's pretty much a job.'
Heid's pals are Arch's pals and vice versa. They all have a group chat, and Arch and his football buddies have a standing invitation to hang out if they're looking to have a little fun in their free time. Heid likes to joke he's the more popular Manning on campus, which might not be that much of a stretch. But Arch's brother is a title he's happy to hold.
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When Arch turned 21 in April, his mother begged him to let her throw a big party. But Arch opted for an intimate dinner with his close circle at ATX Cocina, an upscale Mexican restaurant in town. Stories were told. Heid gave a toast. Just what Arch wanted.
This May before an early-morning family trip to the Bahamas, Arch came crashing into Heid's room at 11:30 p.m., jumped on the bed and shook his brother awake, too excited to sleep.
'I probably don't tell (Heid) enough how much I appreciate him,' Arch said. 'But I'm definitely his biggest fan behind his back. He's the funniest guy I know. He's the funniest guy in every room. No one laughs harder around him than me.'
That said, no one keeps Arch humble like his siblings.
During his first week on campus, Arch infamously lost his Texas student ID. He thinks it fell out of his wallet or phone in an English rhetoric and writing class.
A fellow student found it and astutely realized the ID gave her access to the Texas football facility. She walked right into the South end zone of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium to hand-deliver it to head coach Steve Sarkisian. But not before she took a picture of the ID that she promptly posted to Snapchat.
'I go back to my dorm room, I take a nap and I wake up to a FaceTime call from Sark,' Arch said. 'I was thinking I was in trouble or missed something, and it was him with the ID. He FaceTimed with it and was like, 'Hey pal.' So that was funny.'
Within seconds of hanging up with Sarkisian, Arch had multiple text messages. The picture had already gone viral — the college football world getting a collective laugh out of QB1's whoopsie.
'Literally, my sister was like, 'What the hell is this?'' Arch said with a laugh. 'I lost it again on the Fourth of July last summer. That one did not go viral, which was great. It's probably at the bottom of the ocean or something.'
Two years later, May and Heid still laugh at the Snapchat that, in some ways, perfectly embodies their brother.
'So typical,' May said. 'Just love the kid, but some of the things I'm like, 'Not surprised at all.''
'It was the most, 'Yep, that's definitely my brother,'' Heid said. 'Especially the first week he got there. I was like, 'Yeah, this definitely sounds right.''
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As a football player, Arch studies film scrupulously, can break down defenses for days, inherited his mother's speed and has made it a point to work on his leadership this offseason. But as a brother, he has an endearing personality that often cracks his siblings up. A total middle child.
May isn't so sure Arch, who loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch, can work a toaster properly or knows his car needs to have its oil changed regularly. One time, he asked his mother how much 'sand', er, laundry detergent he'd need for the washing machine. Another time, during his first semester at Texas, he called Heid because he realized he didn't know his own sushi order (it's two crunchy rolls on soy paper with miso soup).
'Arch knows things that no one else knows,' May said with a laugh. 'But then things that everyone knows, Arch has no idea about.'
And then there are the bajillion questions, every single one of which keeps May and Heid on their toes.
If Arch isn't asking May for girl advice, he's peppering her about her latest outing to grab ice cream — Where'd she go? What flavor did she get? Who'd she go with? Meet anyone new? Did the place look the same as usual? How are her friends liking the University of Delaware? Do they have sports there? Or, when she went to dinner with a friend recently — What'd you guys talk about? What questions did you ask?
'Arch is very inquisitive. I would say that's a quirk. Inquisitive about things that you would not think a person would be inquisitive about. He asks 100 questions. Heid, wouldn't you agree?' May said, laughing.
'He's very curious about the things that don't matter at all,' Heid echoed. 'I'm like, 'Why are you even asking me these questions?''
Both siblings figured that quirk also comes to the forefront when Arch and Sarkisian game plan or review concepts and coverages.
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'I cannot imagine what those meetings are like,' Heid quipped.
'Oh, me neither,' May said. 'Sark's probably like, 'Please get out of my office.''
But that's Arch. And they love him for it.
Late last month, May was in Austin to see her younger brother for his last free weekend before preseason camp opened and football would dominate his schedule until January. Over takeout sushi with two of her UVA friends — who have also become Arch's good friends — she noticed something about her brother's demeanor.
'With all of this pressure — he's only played a couple downs of college football — and all of this hype, I think above it all, Arch is excited. He's antsy,' she said. 'He's excited to kind of put all of the hype and all of the talk to test: 'Everyone keeps saying what I can do, let me see if I can do it.' I think that's kind of how he's feeling right now.'
Indeed, talking season is coming to a close and Arch will soon take the field in Columbus for a massive early-season test for the quarterback and the team.
'That's why you come to a school like Texas — to play in big-time games,' he said. 'So why not knock it out early? See what we're all about.'
Through the course of the season, Heid and May will root their brother on. They'll offer an escape. Try to make him laugh in their 25-person SnapChat group, featuring all of the friends the siblings bring home to Mardi Gras — Arch's favorite time of year outside of football season.
Ellen, Arch's mother, believes she'll be the most nervous person in the stadium any given week. Heid thinks he'll have her beat — sitting in the stands while someone else blocks for Arch.
May's biggest hope?
'Obviously it's a lot of pressure, and I could not imagine being in his position,' she said. 'But I hope that with all of this right now, all of the attention surrounding him, I hope that it doesn't suck the fun and enjoyment out of football, because I know he loves it so much.
'I pray and I hope that that continues for him.'
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
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