FRISCO, Texas _ Amari Cooper hit up a local suit store recently to shop for game day. Cowboys players are required to dress up, and their arrival at the stadium is treated like a virtual fashion show on social media.
The salesperson kept bringing him pairs of shoes to go with the looks. "No," Cooper rejected them, "no." His childhood friend who was visiting spied one pair and started laughing, Cooper recounted.
They looked like Cooper's old "church shoes."
Growing up in the west Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Cooper was the youngest of five, and he owned only one pair of shoes at a time. He wore them for church, but also for school, for everyday, for playing football.
"They were my everything shoes," the wide receiver who changed the course of the Cowboys' season said in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News. And, as he explained it, the shoes "talked," meaning the sole separated from the rest of the shoe and flapped.
"My mother, she used to buy super glue to glue the part back on," Cooper said. "But I was playing football ... so I would shake and run. They would always come back loose and the glue would be showing.
"It's kind of funny now. But all my friends remember that."
The memory is a glimpse into Cooper's backstory that surprisingly remained largely private as he emerged from a low-income area and football hotbed to become part of the University of Alabama dynasty and the No. 4 overall pick in the NFL draft in 2015.
The Cowboys deemed the 24-year-old, two-time Pro Bowler their missing piece and worthy of the 2019 first-round draft pick they gave the Oakland Raiders to get him. When the trade was made Oct. 22, the Cowboys were 3-4. The 7-2 finish to the regular season and wild-card playoff game Saturday night against Seattle at AT&T Stadium _ another chance for a franchise starved for postseason success _ seemed almost fantastical at the time.
Cowboys and their fans continue getting to know Cooper, the gifted route runner with game-breaking ability who is thoughtful and economical with his words. But Michael Irvin is already convinced. The Cowboys' Hall of Fame receiver said he sees Cooper joining running back Ezekiel Elliott, 23, and quarterback Dak Prescott, 25, as the core of the Cowboys' offense for the next decade.
"Amari, his personality, the way he is away from the football field, I knew he would fit perfectly with the kind of leader Dak is and a young Ezekiel Elliott," Irvin said. "You have a young quarterback, that's the best thing you can give him _ a guy that is so great at getting in and out of his cuts ... knowing that he'll be wide open.
"He's such a great fit and now these guys can play together hopefully for the next nine, 10 years. And hopefully do a lot of winning. It's a great combination."
