Xavier Cooper returned to his parents’ house in Tacoma, Wash., after a workout in late July and found his mother, Dawn, waiting for him to open an important piece of mail.
His diploma from Washington State University had arrived.
“We opened it together and just had a moment of pure joy,” Dawn Cooper said in a phone interview. “He just sat there staring at it for probably three minutes. We hugged and shed a few tears. It was a good moment.”
Xavier Cooper, a second-year defensive lineman for the Browns, overcame a learning disability to earn his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.