Cooper Kupp's homecoming with Seahawks culminating in 2nd Super Bowl

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on Feb 5, 2026

Published in Football

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Four years ago, Aaron Best made the rounds. Everyone wanted to talk to the Eastern Washington head coach about one of the players he saw grow up on the campus in Cheney getting ready to play in the Super Bowl.

And when the big game came around at the end of that week in February of 2022, Best watched Cooper Kupp cap one of the best offensive seasons the league has ever seen by being named MVP of the Super Bowl and catching the winning touchdown with less than 90 seconds remaining.

“When he scored in the Super Bowl a couple years back — he’s a man of few words. He doesn’t say a ton. He’s going to keep to himself, he’s going to do his thing, save his energy and put it in the right direction — but when he looked at the sky and had an outburst, that was the loudest moment I’ve ever seen Cooper Kupp have in his entire career,” Best recalled. “To a normal fan, it was like he’s just celebrating. No. That was over the top for a guy that I’ve known since like 2012. That was an absolute outburst of joy, excitement, passion. A culmination. It was awesome to watch when he scored. He’s always just a pat on the helmet or a shake in the end zone when he scores a touchdown. But this was different. I think he realized he was putting a cherry on top of the sundae.”

Best was again in demand over these past couple of weeks. But the context was different. Instead of talking about the kid he watched grow up and become a star in California, he was talking about Kupp returning to his home state, playing for his home team and again finding himself playing for a championship.

The kid who grew up in Yakima and became a star in Cheney now has a chance to win a Super Bowl with Seattle.

“I don't really think about it that much. I try to be so in this place of like, being where my feet are,” Kupp said on Thursday. “You appreciate so many people and I think there's always the element of humility, of understanding how many people were a part of getting to this place. And none of us are here by our own volition, but because of (what) so many people have poured into us, coaches especially. Each of these guys up here is going to tell you about a coach or a mentor in their lives that's been instrumental in allowing them to get to where they are now, and so there's always that understanding.”

This isn’t the same version of Kupp from four years ago that Best will be watching play in the Super Bowl on Sunday against New England. That version of Kupp was the NFL offensive player of the year with 145 catches and 1,947 yards receiving in the regular season, plus two touchdown receptions in the Super Bowl win over Cincinnati.

This version of Kupp is now 32 years old and a complementary piece alongside Jaxon Smith-Njigba. But he’s also one that continues to show his value, as evidenced by catching the game-winning TD in the NFC title game win over the Rams.

Local angles always make for good stories when teams are successful. Think about Jermaine Kearse for a minute and how he’s regarded for being a kid from Lakewood, who went to UW and won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks — and very nearly a second.

But Kearse was a top recruit out of Lakes High School and played in the Pac-12. It’s a little different with the case of Kupp, who reminded questioners on the final day of media availability before Super Bowl LX that he had just two offers to continue playing football when he graduated from A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, and one of them happened to be Eastern Washington.

And then he went out and caught 428 passes for 6,464 yards and 73 touchdowns in just 52 college games.

“Credit goes to the individual. Let’s be honest. We were one of the few schools that gave him a scholarship opportunity to play at the Division I level. He took the opportunity here. He had a choice. Not a ton, but he had choices, and he took it here,” Best said. “A lot of people parade the school or the program, but Coop did it. We gave him an opportunity. He made the most of the opportunity. We just happened to be the vehicle he was riding in during his time here. We’ve had a ton of really good ones before he got here. We just recently had another good one after Coop was done here. But he’s the benchmark of greatness — eliteness, really — at this level, at the position.”

On Thursday, Kupp wasn’t interested in reflection quite yet of what it would mean to be a home-state kid to win a title with the Seahawks. It’ll happen at some point. But not yet.

“The time for reflection, I think, of truly reflecting on the whole journey, I think that time will come,” Kupp said. “But I want to be in the moment. I want to be (in) the now, enjoying what this is and being able to be with these guys.”

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Seattle Times sports reporter Andy Yamashita contributed to this story.