Central Michigan University Athletics
QB's Dad: 'It's Out Of Your Hands'
8/20/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Ever wonder what it's like to be the father of the quarterback?
Sure, there's recognition, a measure of prestige. That's my boy out there. My boy, the one who just threw another TD pass. The flip side? Plenty of anxiety, lots of fretting.
Matt Rush wouldn't trade it for anything.
"I get pretty emotional," said Rush, the father of Central Michigan quarterback Cooper Rush. "I feel every snap."
As does every parent who has sat in the stands watching his or her son or daughter in any athletic arena, be it youth-league soccer or the professional level.
For the parent of a quarterback at an NCAA Division I university, everything is magnified, just as everything that the quarterback does on the field, for better or for worse, is picked apart and critiqued by those in the stands, those watching on TV.
The quarterback gets the credit for the good, the blame for the bad, justified or not.
Matt Rush was on the sidelines Saturday as members of CMU's 1100 Club got an up-close look at the Chippewas as they scrimmaged in Indoor Athletic Complex practice facility.
Well of course Matt Rush was there, just as he and his wife of 28 years, Fran, have always been there for their first-born son. They have attended every game that Cooper Rush has played, home and away, since his arrival in Mount Pleasant in 2012, the quarterback's redshirt year when he did little on game days but stand on the sidelines.
"It was hard watching the back of his uniform," said Matt, the Chief Executive Officer at Hayes Green Beach Memorial Hospital in Charlotte, where Rush and his two younger brothers were raised. "But we said, 'We're here to do this, we're here to support him.'
"And the CMU family's been great, fantastic. We've made a lot of good friends here with the CMU family, the players."
Family ties
Matt Rush is a native of Midland, and was a tight end on the Dow High School team that won the Class A state championship in 1976.
Matt Rush's father Tom, an 81-year-old retired orthopedic surgeon, attends all the Chippewa home games, as does his mother Shirley and her husband Bill. Heck, even Cooper's Godfather, Pat Conklin, made it to a game last season - flying in from China.
Matt sits with his father, while Fran prefers to mix with the parents and ardent supporters. Everybody deals with it differently, Matt said.
"My wife's pretty different from me," he said. "She's very excitable, very sociable, a lot of fun. She's enjoying being a team mom. She's the life of the party."
An emphasis on education
It's no surprise that Cooper Rush is a model student, having graduated last spring with a bachelor of science degree in actuarial science with a 3.86 grade point average.
He has twice been named to the Academic All-Mid-American Conference Team, and as a sophomore was a Second Team Academic All-American.
Matt is a graduate of Notre Dame, where he was an infielder on the baseball team; Fran, a native of Gary, Ind., where her father was a school superintendent, holds a degree from Purdue. Their middle son, Dillon, is entering his senior year at Michigan, and Owen, the youngest, will enroll at Grand Valley State this fall and will play for the Lakers' golf team.
Athletics and academics went hand in hand in the Rush family.
"Anything we could do activity-wise, (Cooper) was involved," said Matt, 57. "Three boys growing up, it's just a natural to play all the time. I can't walk any more and I can't lift my right arm any more from playing with these kids."
Rush was a quarterback from the get-go in the Charlotte Junior Orioles football program. He developed into a standout both on the gridiron and on the basketball court at Lansing Catholic High School. He finished his prep career as one of the most prolific passers in state history.
And he was the same steady Cooper Rush then that he is now, Matt said.
"Coop's always been not too high and not too low," he said. "He knows who he is. Doesn't try to be anybody else, which I think in this day and age is rare, and it's really a credit to a young man.
"He's a quiet listener. He's always been coachable, always takes it in. All the things that you don't think they hear you say, it goes in like a sponge and now I'm seeing it come out. There's a really deep parental joy in that. I think the sky's the limit for Cooper in what he can do with his life."
In the spotlight
In that way, Matt and Fran Rush are no different than any other parents. But for them, that growth has been infinitely more high profile than most as Cooper Rush has developed into one of the best signal-callers in the Mid-American Conference, if not the country.
He is on the preseason watch list for all the major national quarterback awards, as well as the Maxwell Watch List. The Maxwell goes to college football's most outstanding player.
Not that you will ever hear Cooper Rush talk much about those types of things. His approach to interviews - and he is in high demand these days - is the same as it is to the game: steady, little flash, all substance.
Still waters, they say, run deep.
"He's got a deep, burning competitive spirit that you can't see," Matt said. "It takes a lot to get him overtly mad. He gets disappointed, frustrated. But he doesn't show it."
The right stuff
Rush's never-too-high, never-too-low demeanor is tailor made for the quarterback position. When the storm rages around him, he becomes even more determined, more focused, Matt said.
"I think he tunes up his game (in those situations)," Matt said. "I don't think it bothers him. It actually sort of makes him more focused. He can drown out everything. There's almost a calmness that sets it."
Matt is a former athlete. He's been at the plate with two outs, last of the ninth, full count. That insight does little to calm the nerves on a fall Saturday as he watches his son pull the trigger in the CMU offense.
"It's much harder to watch" than to play, he said. "I'm sure that's (every parent's) answer. It's out of your hands."
But not out of your heart.
