MIAMI _ Amari Cooper wanted the game-winning touchdown, no matter the consequences.
This wasn't a stadium packed with 70,000 NFL fans, but the blacktop basketball court at The Barnyard, an after-school program and summer camp in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami where Cooper grew up.
The football games there were legendary and Gary Wilcox, a counselor now in his 21st year at The Barnyard, was Cooper's first quarterback. He has a hint of guilt when he talks about his game-winning connection with the Raiders' star wide receiver.
"It was a slant. I think I threw the ball a little too hard," Wilcox said, walking himself and a reporter through the route on that very same blacktop on a visit during the Raiders weeklong stay in Florida.
The problem? A tree that stood tall and proud in the back of the makeshift end zone.
"I knew it was a little too far," Cooper said, recalling that pass this week. "I had a feel. I know the area we were playing in. I still wanted to go catch it because it gave me a good feeling to catch a ball at The Barnyard because everybody was so competitive."
Cooper made the catch and then ... bam, he slammed right into the tree.
"I had the biggest knot on my face," Cooper said.
"He'll blame me for that," Wilcox said. "That was my bad, Amari. I led you a little too far. But he caught the ball."
Cooper caught a lot of balls here. Situated about a stone's throw from both his house and elementary school, Cooper attended The Barnyard from ages 5 to 12. The three-hour after-school program was enjoyable, but full-day summer camp was his favorite.
For his mother, Michelle Green, a single mother of five, the non-profit center's free programs were a godsend.
"It was hard to afford to after-school programs when I'm a working a low-wage job," Green said. "It meant a lot to me as far as giving them a place to go, knowing they would be safe and being able to do their homework."
Cooper never struggled to find inspiration to get his schoolwork done.
"We would always rush to do our homework because after work, we knew that it was football," Cooper said.
Wilcox and fellow Barnyard counselor Travis Swain _ another one of Cooper's first quarterbacks _ still remember meeting 5-year-old Amari.
"Very quiet, laidback, shy kid," Wilcox said. "Very observant at what his surroundings were."
"He would always be around with a football in his hand," Swain said. "Just throwing it up in the air, trying to see if he could get anybody to play with him."
That didn't prove difficult.
"We had so many kids that were super athletic," Wilcox said. "Every day or every other day when we had the opportunity to play sports, we would pick teams and we'd be the quarterbacks just to see what the guys would do."
Fellow Raiders receiver Johnny Holton, a childhood friend of Cooper's who grew up in Coconut Grove, attended as well.
"That used to be the best times, playing football at The Barnyard," Holton said. "A lot of people running around trying to make plays."
"Amari wasn't the strongest or the fastest," Wilcox said, "but he was determined. He was always determined."
And he was never rattled.
"I do remember one incident," Swain said. "One kid was really downing him, 'Ah I'm better than you.' But Amari never gave any talk back. He never said anything. He just got back, lined up."
Within a few years, Wilcox started realizing they might be looking at something special.
"Between 8 and 9, he started transitioning," Wilcox said. "He starting doing some stuff that, you have an athletic gift that coaches can't coach _ he had that. Some of the cuts, some of the instincts that he had, it was phenomenal."
