Plenty of Maine kids have grown up playing basketball in their driveways, envisioning a far-off reality where they trade the pavement for a packed stadium. In that dream scenario, every play is a triumph that captivates the entire country.
Cooper Flagg is living that dream.
And he has provided a chance for his home state of Maine to live it along with him.
“This is just something I dreamed about ever since I was a little kid,” Flagg said before he and the Duke Blue Devils played in the Sweet 16 last week. “These are the moments that I imagined myself being in when I was in the driveway, things like that. Just a surreal feeling to be here in these moments and have these opportunities. I just feel really blessed.”
It has also been a surreal feeling for people watching him here in Maine. That’s been a common way for Mainers to explain it as they’ve watched Flagg live out a dream — his own, and theirs — at the pinnacle of college basketball.
“He’s living something that we all wanted to live,” Kaiden Crowley, who had his own impressive high school basketball career in Maine at Jonesport-Beals, said at Buffalo Wild Wings in Bangor last Thursday during Duke’s game against the Arizona Wildcats.
The dream has continued, and perhaps only intensified, as March Madness has progressed. Flagg put up 30 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three blocks against Arizona in that historically well-rounded Sweet 16 performance. Then he and the Blue Devils surged past the Alabama Crimson Tide to secure their spot in the Final Four.
The Final Four action gets underway on Saturday, and Duke will face a tough test against Houston and its top-ranked defense. Flagg will hit the court as the recently-crowned AP men’s college basketball player of the year, just the fourth freshman ever to earn that honor.
But as throughout the tournament and season, expect Flagg’s focus to be on winning games rather than awards. And while the freshman from Newport, Maine, continues to chase his dream, he has also been redefining the dreams of those around him.
Andy Bedard, Flagg’s longtime club basketball coach from third grade through his junior year of high school, told the Bangor Daily News recently that, despite knowing from a young age that Flagg could “become something really special,” the relentless effort he has put in over the years has propelled his journey “beyond all of our wildest dreams.”
Clearly, Flagg is no stranger to pushing the boundaries of what seems possible. And as he continues to push forward in pursuit of his goals, he is also inspiring other kids from Maine to think bigger about their own.
“Cooper Flagg, he’s inspired me to go into the WNBA,” Bangor fourth grader Elin Main said earlier in the NCAA tournament.
And she wasn’t alone.
“He’s made it all this way, and he’s from a small town in Maine, so that means I could work hard and also get where he’s at,” 9-year-old Landon Walker of Milo.
Just a few years ago, at least here in Maine, that’s a dream that may never have left the driveway. Now, thanks to Cooper Flagg, it’s unfolding on a national stage. And other dreamers in Maine are happily along for the ride.
