How Cooper DeJean’s ‘first love’ of basketball helped set him on a path to the Eagles

Travis Chizek learned about Cooper DeJean’s athletic reputation long before he coached him in football and track at OABCIG High School in northwest Iowa.

The school, composed of students from the neighboring small towns of Odebolt, Arthur, Battle Creek, and Ida Grove, used to run a “future stars” basketball tournament for younger age groups in the district. High school students coached each team. Chizek, a math teacher, recalled one of his students oozing confidence when he asserted that his fifth-grade team would win the tournament.

“You’ve been scouting the fifth-grade class?” Chizek joked with the student.

“Well, we have Cooper DeJean,” he responded.

Chizek would discover that his student’s hunch about DeJean’s basketball abilities only scratched the surface of his athletic potential in high school.

The Odebolt native had whittled his extracurricular endeavors down to four sports — football, basketball, track, and baseball — by the time he enrolled at OABCIG. He left a two-time state champion in football, the career points and steals school leader in basketball, and a state champion in the long jump and 100 meters in track.

For kids like DeJean growing up in Odebolt, a town with a population of less than 1,000, playing multiple sports is the norm. The school district was small, so most athletically inclined kids dabbled in a little bit of everything just to fill out the rosters.

Still, DeJean’s parents, Jason and Katie, never pushed sports on their oldest son, who preferred watching ESPN over cartoons as a child. As former college basketball players, they supported him in his myriad interests. Cooper excelled at them all, but two sports stood out above the rest as he grew older.

“He’s always liked football,” Katie said. “But his first love was basketball.”

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There was more opportunity for the 6-foot, 198-pound DeJean in football, so he committed to Iowa, his childhood team, as a junior to play safety. Two seasons as a standout starting cornerback and punt returner for the Hawkeyes led him to the Eagles, who traded up to select him in the second round, No. 40 overall, in last month’s NFL draft.

Alongside cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, the No. 22 overall pick out of Toledo, DeJean is poised to play a key role in the long-term future of the Eagles secondary. His competitive basketball days are in the past, but the skills DeJean cultivated on the court continue to translate to his game on the gridiron.

“It definitely helped me excel at the game of football and helped me get to this point,” DeJean said.

Chase Courbat remembers how it felt to catch a pass from DeJean for the first time in a seventh-grade AAU basketball practice.

Sharp and crisp, each pass hit Coubat squarely in his hands, even the no-look ones off pick-and-rolls. That was unique for Courbat, the center who measured 6-foot-8 by the time he reached his freshman year at Cedar Falls High School. Courbat wasn’t used to playing with boys his age who were able to see the court and dish the ball as well as DeJean.

“I just immediately saw how athletically gifted and special this kid was at sports,” said Courbat, who now plays Division I basketball at Northern Iowa. “I remember driving home with my dad from that practice and being like, ‘This kid is going to make our team so much better.’”

As a point guard, DeJean was considered by Martin Brothers coach Hank Huddleson to be an “an extension of the coach on the floor.” DeJean’s vision and understanding of angles and passing lanes helped him put his teammates in positions to score.

He didn’t play selfishly, Huddleson said — when opponents took opportunities away from DeJean as he drove to the rim, he knew how to kick it out to set up a teammate for a basket.

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That blend of vision, feel, and athleticism that DeJean developed in basketball translated to his various roles on the football field. Coach Larry Allen and his staff were determined to get DeJean on the varsity field as a sophomore, putting him in a starting role as a receiver and defensive back.

He eventually took over at quarterback in his junior and senior seasons, leading the Falcons to their first back-to-back state championships.

Whether he was finding open receivers as a quarterback, evading defenders on explosive touchdown runs as a receiver, or reading the quarterback’s eyes to pull off picks as a defensive back, DeJean used his vision to his advantage. DeJean set OABCIG records in career passing yards (7,020, No. 20 all-time in the state) and passing touchdowns (77, tied for No. 13).

“When he was playing quarterback or DB for us, it’s like he could see everything, and that was the same case from when he was on the basketball floor,” Chizek said. “We watched from the stands and he would always be trying to get the ball to his teammates on the floor, just like when he was on the football field.”

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Huddleson’s AAU players to have the ability to dunk by the time they reached eighth grade. After all, he said, players have come through the program who ranged from 6-4 to 6-9 by the time they were 14 years old.

But it was far more unusual to see a guard do it as explosively as DeJean did at his age and size. Courbat estimated that DeJean measured no more than 5-9 at the time he could start to dunk in practice. By their freshman season, DeJean debuted dunks in games, particularly on breakaways. As DeJean grew bigger, stronger, and more confident, he incorporated dunks over opponents in the post.

“For him to be a point guard, and he was able to post up a guy in the block, drop step, and dunk all over them like they weren’t even standing there, it was pretty crazy,” Courbat said.

“Like I was our big guy, and we’d have plays where I’d run the guard and throw him a pass into the post and he’d just drop step and dunk on somebody,” Courbat said. “Pretty much every dunk he did, it was like, ‘Wow.’”

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Basketball fans on social media took notice. While trailing in a game during the first tournament of their sophomore season in Madison, Wis., DeJean flashed his defensive instincts when he came up with a steal and posterized a defender on the opposite end. Martin Brothers went on to win the tournament. A clip of the play went viral on social media accounts like Overtime and brought swarms of followers to DeJean’s own profiles.

Despite the newfound attention, Martin Brothers teammate Keaton Kutcher said DeJean remained levelheaded. He maintained that attitude when students from other schools began to sit in the OABCIG student sections at basketball and football games, waiting for him to make another highlight-reel dunk or game-shifting play.

“He just stays solid, never too high, never too low,” said Kutcher, who now plays basketball at Illinois. “And that translated to what he was doing on the court. Obviously had a very impressive prep career on the court. Could have definitely played college basketball. Definitely contributed to what he was doing football-wise, too. Just his mentality and staying solid like that.”

Jason DeJean often jokes that if Cooper were 6-4, he probably wouldn’t be playing football now. Such a growth spurt wouldn’t have been a remote possibility — Jason is 6-5 and Katie is 5-11. DeJean wore a size-14 shoe in middle school, leading Katie to believe that her oldest son had room to grow. But he stopped sometime around his sophomore and junior years.

While Jason said DeJean garnered interest from some Division II basketball teams, his performance in his junior football season put him on the map among Power Five programs. He led OABCIG to a 13-0 record in the regular season, helped it win its first state championship, and set single-season school records with 3,546 passing yards (236 completions), 42 passing touchdowns, and 1,292 rushing yards. DeJean also contributed two pick-sixes and a pair of punt returns for touchdowns.

His athleticism on the field and on the court caught Iowa’s attention. Katie said Tyler Barnes, Iowa’s recruiting director, came to town to watch one of DeJean’s high school basketball games. After DeJean posted a couple of dunks on defenders, Barnes saw he had the athleticism required of a safety at Iowa. DeJean committed to play for the Hawkeyes toward the end of his junior year, ultimately landing at cornerback for the bulk of three seasons.

“I think it just came down to not really choosing football over basketball, but choosing the opportunity,” said Martin Brothers teammate Kutcher said. “The best opportunity that presented itself, which obviously happened to be football.

“Everybody’s really glad that it was that case, because it was the right choice in the end, for sure.”

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Come July, DeJean will take the field at Eagles training camp and compete for a prominent role in the secondary and on special teams. Until then, fans have unearthed another way to admire his athleticism.

Since the draft, DeJean’s high school and AAU basketball highlights have recirculated on social media. Courbat said it seems like his entire feed is littered with clips of DeJean dunks. They provide glimpses into the cornerback’s speed, strength, and explosiveness that his AAU teammates once cherished.

“It was no secret to me or any of my teammates that he was going to be doing what he’s doing now,” Kutcher said. “And I’m just glad the world gets to see a little bit of him, too.”