NEWPORT, Maine — Within the calm moments — the few there are — snow slithers sideways throughout the northbound lanes of I-95. It’s nearly swish how the flurries snake proper to left, passengers on each random gust of wind. Nearly. However then the gusts turn into punches, pummeling and whipping the perimeters of this poor grey Nissan Altima. Windshield wipers are working extra time, and it takes each little bit of front-wheel drive to remain aligned with the 2 skinny tire tracks within the far proper lane. And straight forward, you see … nothing. The grey horizon swallows every part, even the tops of the hovering pines that body the freeway.
It’s like being inside a fiercely shaken snow globe.
Instantly, amidst the whiteout, an ordinary inexperienced roadside signal seems: Exit 157. This complete trek — 100 miles north of Portland, previous a number of “Moose Warning” indicators — is to go to this tiny intersection. “Blink,” mentioned longtime resident Josh Grant, “and also you’ll miss it.”
Skate up the overpass to a cease signal; to the fitting is the native taxidermist, and never a lot else — so veer left, and welcome to Newport. Inhabitants: about 3,000. The principle thoroughfare is known as Moosehead Path, however there’s no cutesy downtown with boutique retailers or mom-and-pop eating places.
There are two gasoline stations, a couple of fast-food joints — Burger King, McDonald’s, Subway, Dunkin’ — a pharmacy, an ice cream store, and two marijuana dispensaries. Across the nook there’s a Walmart, and within the car parking zone, a log cabin that serves because the group’s chamber of commerce.
Just a few roads over, on a snowy avenue the plows haven’t reached, 10 homes down on the left, there’s a brown two-story, with the remnants of a basketball hoop on the left aspect of a curving driveway.
That is the place Cooper Flagg, the most effective highschool basketball participant in America, was raised. Cooper’s enrolling at Duke subsequent season, earlier than seemingly changing into the No. 1 choose within the 2025 NBA Draft. At 17, the 6-foot-9 ahead already has been named a McDonald’s All-American, the MVP of the annual NBA Gamers Affiliation top-100 camp, and an all-star on the 2022 FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup, which he helped the US win.
A local Mainer hasn’t been drafted in 40 years, not because the New Jersey Nets chosen Jeff Turner in 1984. But in some way, this city — “a spot for individuals going different locations,” as resident Earl Anderson calls it — has bred one in every of basketball’s brightest rising stars.
Maine has just one Division I program — the College of Maine — and the Black Bears males’s crew has by no means made the NCAA Match. The state not often exports expertise to different packages.
“Simply because we don’t produce the massive D1 athletes as a lot as these different states do, individuals don’t suppose basketball is as huge (right here),” mentioned Ralph Flagg, Cooper’s dad. “Nevertheless it actually is.”
Maine has no skilled sports activities franchises, so native TV channels stream each spherical of the annual state highschool tournaments, and the regional and championship video games are performed within the state’s largest arenas, in Bangor, Augusta and Portland. Folks flock from as far north as Madawaska — one in every of America’s “4 Corners,” which sits on the Canadian border — to observe gamers compete to carry the coveted Gold Ball dwelling to their group. “With regards to match time, the final individual leaving the city turns the lights out,” mentioned Ralph, repeating an previous Maine expression.
“Highschool basketball is generations deep within the material of all these communities,” Anderson mentioned. “It binds them collectively.”
Most small Maine cities aren’t massive sufficient to help a faculty themselves. (Newport, for instance, is one in every of eight communities that feeds into Nokomis Regional Excessive College.) It’s a couple of thousand individuals right here, one other couple hundred there, all coming collectively to help that technology of gamers. Anderson, who coached Cooper his freshman yr, led Nokomis to its solely women state championship in 2001, some extent of pleasure for each coach and group.
Cooper’s dad and mom each performed at Nokomis. Ralph later performed for Jap Maine Group School. And mother Kelly stays one of many prime skills Nokomis ever produced; she performed on the one College of Maine crew to win an NCAA Match recreation, a 1999 upset over Stanford.
After school, Ralph was enjoying in a males’s league at the area people heart — a transformed Forties armory, just some minutes stroll from the home Cooper grew up in — alongside Kelly’s dad (who additionally performed at Nokomis). “That was sort of the place we met,” Ralph mentioned. “On a basketball courtroom.”
They settled, like their dad and mom earlier than them, in Newport, elevating their three boys: Hunter, the oldest, and later twins Cooper and Ace. The boys have been raised with a basketball of their arms, touring the state to observe video games. Kelly — who coached the Nokomis varsity women crew — has pictures of them asleep in numerous highschool rafters. At dwelling, the boys spent hours within the driveway (when the climate allowed it) enjoying pickup, with their dad and mom or mates or only one one other.
“After which even typically within the winter,” Cooper mentioned, “we’d shovel out a sq. within the snow and play with gloves on.”
By Hunter’s freshman yr, Nokomis was enjoying in a close-by summer season league, however struggled discovering sufficient gamers. So Cooper and Ace joined in — as sixth-graders, towards excessive schoolers. “(Cooper) was nonetheless the most effective participant on both crew,” Ralph mentioned.
About the identical time, Kelly obtained a name from a former school peer: Andy Bedard, a basketball icon in Maine. Bedard led Mountain Valley Excessive to a state title in 1994, earlier than enjoying at Boston School and Maine. Bedard was teaching his son, Kaden, and had heard about Cooper. He invited the household to attend a observe, and so they have been instantly impressed.
“They have been shocked how I didn’t have a complete lot of time and persistence for, like, kiddie gloves,” Bedard mentioned. “The drills and the teaching and the urgency and the velocity, you’d have thought you have been at a highschool observe, in the event you had your eyes closed and also you didn’t see the youngsters on the market — however in the meantime, they’re like fourth-graders.”
Ultimately, Bedard and Kelly shaped their very own AAU program, the place they might pour each greenback they raised again into their youngsters. They let the boys determine on a reputation: Maine United.
The crew drew gamers from all around the state. Bedard was based mostly in New Gloucester, as an illustration, about 20 minutes north of Portland. So Maine United didn’t have one constant observe gymnasium; it used a church in Portland, or a gymnasium at Division III Bates School in Lewiston, or wherever it may practice.
As soon as the center college bell rang, two or three days every week, the Flaggs trekked down I-95. They’d pack snacks, or order a pizza pickup on the best way, to chop their commute. “In all probability like an hour and 45 minutes,” Bedard mentioned. “Hour and a half, possibly, if Kelly was driving 100.” They often drove the household’s blue Chrysler minivan. They’d lay the center row of seats down so the boys may sprawl out, then play previous Boston Celtics tapes on the van’s mini DVD participant.
“The ‘85-86 Celtics championship Finals disc,” Cooper mentioned. “We watched all these so many occasions. Then we had Magic versus Fowl. Simply all these different previous Celtics movies.” These tapes have been Cooper’s basketball schooling. Larry Fowl was his professor and stays his favourite participant. And the best way these groups performed — sharing the ball, prioritizing protection — at all times caught with Cooper. “Watching them each single day possibly brainwashed him into the truth that, nicely, that’s the way you play,” Bedard mentioned.
Maine United received rapidly regionally, however quickly needed a broader barometer. They discovered one at a seventh-grade grassroots match in Washington, D.C. “I’m seeing all these huge guys within the layup line, and it’s our age group,” Bedard mentioned, “however definitely all of them regarded a hell of rather a lot older. A few of them had tattoos.” 5 minutes into the sport, Maine United led 24-2. “And Cooper, he’s smashing every part,” Bedard mentioned.
Cooper’s efficiency that weekend put him on the nationwide radar. “I bear in mind my grandson texted me, ‘Are you aware Cooper Flagg?’” Anderson mentioned. “As a result of he had learn someplace that he was, like, the seventh-ranked seventh-grader, eighth-grader within the nation.” By their eighth-grade yr, prep colleges from across the nation began calling, asking them to switch.
However Cooper and Ace refused. They’d grown up with the identical group of mates, at all times cheering on Nokomis, ready for his or her alternative to play for the Warriors. “We at all times talked about when (Hunter and his mates) have been seniors, once we have been freshmen, what the crew was going to appear to be and the way we have been going to win a Gold Ball collectively,” Cooper mentioned. “As soon as we obtained there, we have been like, let’s make it occur.”
Cooper averaged 20.5 factors, 10 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 3.7 steals, and three.7 blocks per recreation that season — changing into the primary freshman in state historical past to be named Maine Gatorade Participant of the 12 months — and Nokomis received its first state title. A photograph of Hunter, Cooper, and Ace holding the Gold Ball stays the screensaver on Ralph’s cellphone. On the journey dwelling to Newport, Ralph and Kelly and different dad and mom of children who grew up collectively packed into the Flagg’s Chevy Suburban, singing “We Are the Champions” as loud as they might.
Because the bus carrying the crew pulled off exit 157, followers lined the perimeters of Moosehead Path in a miles-long parade that stretched to Nokomis. All eight townships that feed into the college despatched their hearth vehicles and police automobiles to escort the crew bus, and locals close to Nokomis set off fireworks.
“As time has gone on, I’ve grown to understand it increasingly,” Cooper mentioned. “As a result of because the occasions get extra hectic, and every part’s getting extra loopy, I get to understand the simplicity of that yr. I used to be capable of nonetheless sort of simply be a child, and have enjoyable with my mates.”
Tickets to observe Cooper Flagg’s crew play in Portland, Maine, bought out inside 24 hours. (John Jones / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photos)
Halfway by means of Cooper and Ace’s freshman season, the Flaggs accepted the inevitable: The twins must depart dwelling to succeed in their full basketball potential.
“It’s a call it’s important to make sooner or later,” Cooper mentioned, “in the event you actually wish to take your self to the following degree.”
Ralph and Kelly vetted colleges nationwide however struggled to search out the fitting match. Montverde (Fla.) Academy had recruited the twins as eighth-graders, however the household was reluctant to allow them to transfer to date. Then Montverde invited the Flaggs to observe them in-person at a close-by match. The college’s status — it has produced seven first-round NBA picks since 2020 — preceded it, however the twins lastly noticed Montverde’s model, which prioritized the identical team-first rules of the previous Celtics groups they grew up finding out. Leaving the gymnasium, Cooper and Ace agreed: “That is the place we wish to go.”
It wasn’t a straightforward transition. At 15 years previous, the boys have been away from their help system for the primary time. They couldn’t go fishing on Sebasticook Lake, or tenting and chook looking on previous paper firm land in northern Maine. They did their laundry for the primary time. It helped some that Bedard moved to Florida — his son additionally transferred to Montverde — and the twins spent most weekends at his home. Ralph and Kelly flew to all of the twins’ dwelling video games, and others on the East Coast, however not being round them every day took its toll. “It’s laborious to have conversations with them over the cellphone and actually get a real really feel of how they’re feeling,” Ralph mentioned.
So Ralph and Kelly did what they needed to: They bought their home in Newport and moved to Florida full-time. They closed on their Newport dwelling in November.
“It was a tough choice as a result of we’re so near the remainder of our group, however on the similar time, that is the place we wanted to be: with our youngsters,” Ralph mentioned. “Shifting down right here was most likely the most effective choice we’ve made. Simply to be right here with them, and never lose these final couple of years that we do have with them.”
The twins haven’t been again to Newport since final summer season. When Cooper visited a Nokomis basketball camp, the youngsters reacted “prefer it was LeBron James,” mentioned Grant, the college’s present coach. Cooper nonetheless streams Nokomis’ video games and texts his previous teammates after huge wins. Newport will at all times be dwelling, even when he now not has a house there.
Which is what makes the primary Friday night time in January so particular. Portland’s Cross Insurance coverage Area is packed.
Or, will probably be.
Temperatures are nearly right down to single digits — there’s a “storm” coming this weekend, Mainer converse for a blizzard — however you’d by no means understand it from the road of oldsters stretching down Free Road, ready to get inside. To get a glimpse — probably, most likely, their final one — of Cooper Flagg in his dwelling state. Most are sporting gear from one in every of three groups: Nokomis, Montverde or Duke.
When it was introduced that Cooper and Ace’s Montverde crew can be enjoying right here — as a part of “The Maine Occasion,” a speciality showcase placed on by the identical MADE Hoops group that first hosted Maine United within the seventh grade — tickets bought out inside 24 hours. Ralph and Kelly joke they’re “just like the governors” this weekend. The household’s complete 42-seat midcourt part is full, and there’s no less than that many individuals hovering round it always. To say good day, to reminisce. To be part of this second, one the state has by no means had earlier than.
“We’ve by no means had a real, native Mainer have this sort of consideration and this potential,” Bedard mentioned. “And it’s not even like he’s a good participant; we’ve obtained an opportunity to have top-of-the-line ones ever.”
Cooper doesn’t emerge till halfway by means of the primary recreation, that includes his previous Nokomis buddies. He’s barely seen in a tunnel underneath the stands, however he can’t keep hidden lengthy. One fortunate child sees him first and asks for an autograph. That turns into 10, 20, nearly 50, inside minutes.
He will get to observe the sport for possibly three minutes earlier than safety shuffles him again to the locker room.
“At one level, you have been these youngsters,” Cooper mentioned. “So the place (the eye) will be annoying and the place it may be overwhelming, I take into consideration the truth that I used to dream to be that individual, and I labored in the direction of being that individual. So I can’t be, like, aggravated with what comes with it.”
When he dedicated to Duke in October, by means of a commemorative SLAM Journal cowl, T-shirts have been manufactured from the quilt — and proceeds from these gross sales went to the Lewiston-Auburn Space Response fund, which helps that group following October’s mass taking pictures, when 18 individuals have been killed and one other 13 have been injured. These In Flagg We Belief shirts dotting the group? A portion of these proceeds go to the Ronald McDonald Home of Portland, which took care of Kelly and Ralph when all three boys have been born prematurely. After sporting No. 32 his complete life, Cooper needs to put on No. 2 at Duke in honor of his former Maine United teammate, Donovan Kurt, who died of mind most cancers in November 2022.
“It’s simply essential, wherever you might be, to at all times keep grounded and be capable of simply give again to what helped you get to the place you might be,” Cooper mentioned. “To point out help again to all of the individuals which are supporting me from the beginning.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; pictures: Brendan Marks / The Athletic; John Jones, Juan Ocampo, Lance King / Getty Photos)