Xavier Cooper returned to his parents’ house in Tacoma, Wash., after a workout in late July and found his mother, Dawn, waiting for him to open an important piece of mail.
His diploma from Washington State University had arrived.
“We opened it together and just had a moment of pure joy,” Dawn Cooper said in a phone interview. “He just sat there staring at it for probably three minutes. We hugged and shed a few tears. It was a good moment.”
Xavier Cooper, a second-year defensive lineman for the Browns, overcame a learning disability to earn his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He graduated in May.
Becoming a third-round pick in last year’s NFL Draft was a tremendous accomplishment for Cooper, but his academic success is his greatest triumph to date.
Cooper, 24, usually can’t read something once and understand it. He needs to read it a few times — and often go through other exercises — before the material sinks in. His comprehension issue was discovered in middle school, and he was diagnosed with a learning disability as a freshman at Wilson High School in Tacoma.
“I was a super big jock, so I was in basketball, football and track. I was always on varsity. I was always the better athlete. But people still teased me,” Cooper said. “I was put in a special ed class. A couple of my buddies were there, and we struggled because a lot of kids [would say], ‘You’re dumb. You’re retarded.’ I heard all those type of words, but at the end of the day, I got over that hump.”
Cooper worked tirelessly to clear the hurdles presented by his disability, but he didn’t buy in right away. Frustrated with his situation, he would routinely skip classes at Wilson.
However, the threat of football being taken away prompted Cooper to change his attitude. His family played a role, too. Both of his parents have master’s degrees. Dawn is a social work administrator. Father Louis, who had a brief stint as an NFL player, is the director of security and labor relations for the Port of Tacoma. Sister Keysha, 30, is a graduate of Washington State who works for Amazon.
“A lot of kids that struggle like him academically, they just kind of give up,” Dawn Cooper said. “But when you’re playing a sport, you have certain [academic] standards you have to meet or you don’t play on the team. For me, that was the hook to keep him going.”
Still, his grade-point average was low as were his ACT and SAT scores, even though he took the tests several times. Those factors affected his college recruitment and forced him to make a pit stop at Tacoma Community College to become eligible for enrollment at Washington State. He arrived at WSU in January 2011 after grayshirting, and then redshirted before beginning to play collegiate football in 2012.
Heather Erwin, an associate director of student-athlete development, proved to be instrumental to Cooper staying on track academically at WSU. They met daily for a good chunk of his time there and constantly corresponded via text messages.
“She had patience with me,” Cooper said. “She taught me time management — how to break down your time, social time, football time and academics. The social time kind of had to be pushed over and it came down to academics, then football. When I focused on academics, everything fell into place.”
Erwin also helped Cooper realize his best way to learn. He’s a kinesthetic learner, as opposed to visual or auditory, so he benefits most from a hands-on approach.
Anytime he received an assignment, Erwin would make him print the instructions and highlight the key parts. Then they would often watch YouTube videos related to the topic and discuss them. Finally, Cooper would use a marker and a whiteboard to map out flowcharts. Those steps would help him organize his thoughts before he started writing a paper.
Erwin pushed Cooper to advocate for himself, too. He would ask teachers for ways to earn extra credit, seek help from tutors and request extra time to finish tests.
“Kudos to him for being able to come in and embrace that because a lot of people who have learning disabilities will think, ‘Oh, people will think I’m stupid,’ or they just get so embarrassed and bogged down by that,” Erwin said by phone. “But he really took what was offered to him and used that, even though sometimes it may not have been as comfortable for him and he may have felt a little embarrassed by it.”
As Cooper matured, he realized there’s no shame in having a learning disability.
“I was able to understand that I’m OK with that, and that’s me,” he said. “As I met more people, I realized a lot of people have the same issue. A lot of successful people have different learning disabilities.”
Cooper has taken that mindset to the NFL. He’s had to learn a different playbook in each of his first two seasons because the Browns changed coaches in January. He explained walk-through practices are invaluable for him because he needs to go through the motions to retain plays.
“He’s going to have to look at that playbook, but that’s not enough,” Erwin said. “I can bet you anything he’s at home, standing up with that playbook, walking around his apartment, doing the motions, doing the moves because that’s how he’s going to remember things.”
He picked up those habits at WSU.
“He put in hours and hours of extra film, coming in late after practice, after study hall,” Washington State D-line coach Joe Salave’a said. “It was a lot of work that went into it just to get through each week because some of his learning disabilities, which is what makes his experience and story that much more meaningful. He didn’t let anything slow him down. He didn’t use anything as an excuse. All he wanted to do is to finish the things he started.”
Which is why Cooper promised his family, Erwin and Salave’a he would complete his degree, even after the Browns drafted him and signed him to a four-year, $2.9 million contract.
“A lot of guys don’t go back [to school after they reach the NFL],” Dawn Cooper said.
When Cooper left WSU to join the Browns, he needed eight credit hours to complete his degree. He took four online classes this past offseason to meet the requirement. One was particularly challenging, but he found a tutor with whom he could frequently Skype and persevered. His classes ended April 29.
“Statistics say that he shouldn’t have finished, but he overcame a lot of odds and was able to get that done,” Salave’a said. “So it was very emotional to get the call that he graduated.”
Cooper hopes to inspire others who have learning disabilities, and the example he set has already helped some WSU football players.
“X has really left his mark here,” Erwin said. “At least in terms of the guys that he’s played with that are still here, he kind of set a new culture for people.”
His parents couldn’t be more proud. Although he wasn’t able to attend graduation because it conflicted with Browns spring practices, his family threw him a huge party June 23 in Tacoma.
Now Cooper wants to pursue a master’s degree in business administration. He’s entertaining the idea of working to become a high school principal after his NFL career.
Those who know him best have no doubt he can achieve those goals, not after his hard-earned diploma arrived in the mail.
“That was as good as or better than draft day,” Dawn Cooper said.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.