In Iowa’s farm country, small towns rally around a native son in football’s biggest game

ODEBOLT, Iowa (AP) — In the farm town where Cooper DeJean drew up football plays in elementary school and taught classmates to run them at recess, residents plan a huge party to watch the town’s native son in the Super Bowl.

The Philadelphia Eagles defensive back has lifted spirits in Odebolt, Iowa, a town of 920 people once known as the Popcorn Capital of the World.

Residents say he’s also inspired children in the four towns that make up the local school district in this remote region of Western Iowa, where he played quarterback in stadiums carved out of cornfields.

“People want to root for him because of how he carries himself,” said Larry Allen, who was DeJean’s high school football coach.

“Cooper is so unassuming, and he doesn’t talk about himself, he doesn’t showcase himself. He’s a very humble young man, and he did most of his talking on the field of play.”

On Sunday fans will gather in the Odebolt Community Building for a Super Bowl watch party they’re calling the “Cooper Bowl.” Many plan to wear special Eagles green T-shirts printed up for the occasion that feature DeJean’s No. 33. It’s also a birthday party for DeJean, who turns 22 on Super Bowl Sunday.

“The whole town is just ecstatic,” said Cory Duff, who owns The Bolt Drive-In, a local restaurant.

“I would say it has brought a renewed energy back to the community,” he said. “It has definitely uplifted everybody around here.”

Duff said he’s a die-hard Denver Broncos fan “and I even bought his jersey.”

“Everybody around here has their own team, but whenever the Eagles are playing, everyone’s watching,” Duff said.

DeJean’s father, Jason, said he was touched by a video that school employees made featuring dozens of children and teachers wishing his son the best in the Super Bowl.

“They all got on the playground and spelled out ‘Cooper,’” Jason DeJean said. The nearly 5-minute video is infused with cuteness, with one scene showing elementary school students making hand motions to imitate birds as they sing the team’s fight song, “Fly Eagles Fly.”

Ever since DeJean began flying around the football field at the University of Iowa, “the support around this community has been just crazy,” Jason DeJean said. “Now you see Eagle jerseys and 33 and all that stuff. It’s great to see, and you couldn’t ask for any more support than what this community gives.”

After winning back-to-back state football championships in his final two years of high school, DeJean went on to a stellar career at the University of Iowa where he was named an All-American. In the 2024 NFL draft, the Eagles selected him in the second round.

Only a handful of athletes from the small towns of the Western Valley Activities Conference go on to compete in any sport at a major university, making DeJean’s path from Odebolt to the Iowa Hawkeyes and now the Philadelphia Eagles one of the most improbable ever taken in this part of Western Iowa.

“It’s not very often a kid from a town of less than 1,000 people gets to go to the Super Bowl,” Duff said.

DeJean’s intense work ethic is a common thread that ties him to legendary athletes from other parts of the state such as former Iowa Hawkeye and WNBA star Caitlin Clark, from West Des Moines, and Pro Football Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, from Burlington, who played in high school in Cedar Rapids.

DeJean’s path to the Super Bowl has cast a spotlight on Odebolt, but it was the dirt he played on that helped put the town and its surrounding farmland on the map.

A two-lane highway winds down from the Loess Hills on Iowa’s western edge, past giant wind turbines and fields of corn and soybeans to get to Odebolt.

A 20-mile (32-kilometer) stretch of the road, Iowa Highway 175, connects the towns that send students to DeJean’s old high school: Battle Creek, Ida Grove, Odebolt and blink-and-you-miss-it Arthur, population 222.

In this wide-open area, farm animals outnumber people by a wide margin. The county that includes Odebolt is home to about 46,000 cattle — more than four times the human population of 9,800, according to numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The rich, black soil surrounding Odebolt was seen as ideal for growing popcorn and led Chicago’s Cracker Jack Co. to choose it to supply the popcorn for its Cracker Jack snacks.

Cracker Jack Co. Executive Vice President E.R. Shields praised Odebolt’s early pioneers, who created the town from wilderness. And their descendants were “shining examples of strength, fortitude and foresight that has made your community ‘The Popcorn Center of the World,’” he wrote in 1938 in the Odebolt Chronicle.

Residents who know DeJean say they see that same strength and fortitude in him. They speak highly of his work ethic in sports, but also his personality traits in life.

“The kid is insanely humble, and he’s not going to forget where he comes from,” Duff said.