Cooper Manning

This is an article about Cooper Manning. He is the oldest of the three Manning brothers. Not many people even know he exists, but to be honest with you, if you were to ask me which Manning brother is my favorite, it'd be Cooper. For all that Peyton and Eli have accomplished in their football careers, it pales in comparison to what Cooper has been through, overcome, and been successful in life doing. Read on if you're interested:

Another Line
By ALAN GREENBERG And JOHN ALTAVILLA
Courant Staff Writers

February 2 2007

MIAMI -- He's easily the funniest and most outgoing of Archie and Olivia Manning's three sons, and once might have been the best athlete. But while younger brothers Peyton and Eli study NFL defenses, Cooper Manning studies oil and natural gas companies for a boutique brokerage.

"I enjoy it, and I'm pretty good at it," he says in a phone interview from a 35th-floor office with grand views of the Mississippi River and New Orleans. "If I wasn't pretty good, I'd be looking at doing something else."

We all have our dreams, and when your dreams are of football glory, and you're the son of Ole Miss legend and former Saints quarterback Archie Manning, there's a darn good chance that those dreams will be fulfilled. Sunday at Dolphin Stadium, Colts quarterback Peyton fulfills a dream when he becomes the first Manning to lead his team to the Super Bowl. The family will be there, including Cooper (the "oo" is pronounced as in "book") and wife Ellen.

"The kids [daughter May, 4, and sons Arch, 21/2, and Heid, 1] aren't making the cut," says Cooper, meaning the travel squad. "This is a chance for me to get some sleep."

For a guy who views the glass as half-empty, it would also be a chance to lose sleep. To think about what might have been. Cooper Manning, an all-state receiver in high school, was forced to quit football as an Ole Miss freshman when doctors belatedly discovered that he had a congenital narrowing of the spinal canal known as spinal stenosis. It meant that Cooper risked being paralyzed the next time he was hit, and had been risking it all along.

Suddenly, there were no more hits, and no more gridiron glory. And instead of following Cooper to Ole Miss, where he knew they would be the greatest passing combination the world had ever seen, just as they were for that one precious year in high school, a despondent Peyton chose to attend Tennessee. Cooper learned to attend to life without football.

But Cooper, 32, is a glass half-full kind of guy. And the tears he shed 13, 14 years ago - when he endured several operations and doctors unpeeled his back like a banana - are gone. He had to learn to walk again after the surgery, and even once he did the occasional numbness in his legs would cause him to fall down as if he were drunk, a conclusion of passersby that he never bothered to correct.

No longer can Cooper throw a football or shoot a jumper with his misshapen right hand, the numbness and weakness in which was the first symptom of the grim diagnosis. No longer can he drive a golf ball with power, or crush you with a warm handshake when he looks you in the eye, as Archie Manning taught his boys to.

"My handshake sucks," he said.

But never his attitude. Cooper limps, yet carries himself with grace.

"I don't particularly like to dwell," he said. "I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. I was 18 or 19 and I've moved on. I've done a lot of things I couldn't or wouldn't have done, made some buddies I wouldn't have had if I'd still played football. I'd like to think I became a little more well-rounded, a little more worldly, because I didn't have to get up to lift [weights] at 6 in the morning."

Archie remembers those years.

"One of the greatest years in my life was 1991, when Cooper was a senior all-state receiver and Peyton was a sophomore quarterback," Archie said. "It was a fun year for them. It formed an even tighter bond. And then it's a year later and Cooper's going to get his chance to play in college, which was his dream. And then the injury prevented all that.

"I believe Cooper handled it much better than Peyton did. Cooper just thought it was how life went; Peyton was angry, he thought it wasn't fair. They talked it through between them. Their relationship, their love for each other, makes me proud, even very emotional sometimes because the years have a tendency to go by."

After graduating from Ole Miss, Cooper worked in the oil service business for three years, then briefly considered becoming a sports agent or broadcaster before joining energy investment firm Howard, Weil, Labouisse, Friedrichs eight years ago.

"There was something about me," Cooper said, "that wanted to go into a total different direction than Peyton."

As kids, they used to go in the same direction - at each other. Whether it was fighting in the house or mauling each other under the driveway basketball hoop, there was mayhem. And Cooper, two years older, was always the winner. But Cooper also let his brother in on things in the neighborhood.

"They played together in playgrounds and in backyards and as usually was the case it was Cooper's buddies who were there," Archie said. "But they always let Peyton in. They abused him, kicked him around a little and probably toughened him up in the process. But all in all they competed against each other like the devil. They were so close."

Eli, 26, was too young to get involved in that stuff.

Peyton and Cooper got all the benefits of seeing Dad play in the NFL. Eli didn't.

"We just grew up in a different way," said Eli, quarterback of the Giants. "When Peyton and Cooper were growing up, my dad was still playing for the Saints and then Minnesota. So they were going in the locker rooms and knew all the players. They were just around football. By the time I came around, my dad was done playing football, so I never got that atmosphere where it was ingrained on me as early as those two guys."

For many, being the only brother who isn't a football star in America's royal football family could be a royal pain, especially when being a football star was all you wanted to be before a medical condition crushed your dream.

"I like to have fun with it rather than be annoyed by it," says the 6-foot-4, 185-pound Cooper, although honesty keeps him from signing their name when an autograph-seeker confuses him with Peyton or Eli.

Of course, a younger Cooper did get a kick out of a little confusion. When Peyton played at Tennessee, Cooper would come up to Knoxville for the weekend and occasionally sit in a local bar, cigar and drink in hand, on the eve of the game. When a fan, mistaking him for Peyton, would ask why he was out so late, Cooper would say, "Hey, we're only playing ..."

Although Cooper admits he gets tired of being asked, "Tell me some funny stuff about you and your brothers when you were young," he neither hides nor publicizes who he is. A year or two ago, a business client who had become a friend told him, "You're a jerk. I can't believe we've been dealing together for four years and you didn't tell me you were Peyton's brother."

What, no trading on the Manning name?

"These clients are far more intelligent than I could ever imagine being," Cooper said. "That's neat for about 10 minutes. But if you can't tell 'em what they want to know or make money for them, you're on a short leash."

So is Cooper. He can't snow or water ski, and an innocent bearhug or slap on the back can briefly leave him numb or in pain.

But that's just one of the many ways he's different than his brothers.

"Peyton's serious, and I'm not," Cooper said. "I'm very inquisitive, no matter what's going on. Eli doesn't really care. He's not overly interested in where the guy next to him on the flight is from. Eli is particularly comfortable with the awkward silence. I'm not.

"I'm kind of jealous of both those things, being comfortable with the awkward silence, and the ability to be so passionate, like Peyton's approach. He is not going to do his homework and leave a few answers to do the next morning before class real quick. I gave a little informal speech recently to 15 guys that wanted me to talk to them about the Saints and the Colts. I took a few notes, but sort of just winged it. Peyton would have written it all out and practiced it."

Cooper doesn't manage either brother's money. "I'll let other people lose it for them," he says. He does say Eli is more likely to ask.

"I'm more of a big brother to him. I'm more of a peer to Peyton; he doesn't really ask my advice. Peyton, he's a tough customer," Cooper said. "He'd be a hard person; he'd be hard to please. You're just not going to be showered with compliments. It would be, `That's good, but ...

"Eli would be a delight."

Peyton will be less than delighted if he loses the Super Bowl. But not for long. His older brother's dreams, and how abruptly they were destroyed, is Peyton's reality check. Sometimes it's hard to be a Manning, but harder to be a man. Cooper reminds everyone how to be both.