CLEVELAND — When Super Bowl 56 kicks off here on WKYC Sunday, one local boy will rooting with everything he has for the LA Rams. More specifically, he’s rooting for OBJ.
Meet 5 year-old Cooper McGraw.
“Cooper is 5, he absolutely loves sports,” says his mom Heather. "His favorite player is Odell Beckham, loves Odell."
"He just gravitated towards him," his dad Ryan explained. "I think because of a lot of the personality traits that he brought and the highlight reels that he has.”
“And he likes his tattoos and his hair” added mom.
He also likes his dance, "The Gritty." We’ll come back to that.
But first more on Cooper's story. Though he looks like your typical 5-year-old, he's facing his own challenges.
“He has a degenerative eye condition called Knobloch syndrome, it’s very rare, it’s a degenerative eye condition,” Heather said.
The condition so rare, there’s fewer than 100 known cases worldwide. It’s expected that one day Cooper will be completely blind. A simple bump to the head could accelerate it. That means playing football is just a dream.
For his parents, that reality has been difficult to accept.
“It’s sad to think he wont be able to do some of the things his older brothers can do, like drive, and play sports," Heather said. We just don’t know what the future is.”
“It’s hard, because when we’re out there just throwing the football, he just loves the game," Ryan said. "Just watching him not be able to do something that he wants to do so bad, it’s hard as a parent."
So imagine the pain of having to tell your young son, the thing he loves more than anything in the world, he can never do.
Ryan gets emotional talking about it. "He comes up and he says 'hey dad, can I play football next year?' It’s hard knowing that’s what he loves to do. Every single time that he jumps, every single time that he falls, every single time that he does something, that though runs through your mind, is that the moment?”
So for now, when Cooper watches football, all of his focus is on Odell Beckham Jr.
His favorite thing about him? Cooper says, it's watching OBJ catch one-handed.
And he plays Madden. He’s always the Rams…and he’s always throwing the ball to OBJ.
And that’s when he does 'The Gritty.' Every time OBJ scores, Cooper dances right along with him. And he believes he’ll be doing it again come Sunday.
His prediction? Rams win it, 20-0, with two touchdowns from his hero, OBJ. The thought makes him smile from ear to ear.
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