How Kingsbury connected with Mahomes’ HS coach to gift SB ticket
Feb 9, 2020, 6:05 AM
(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Sitting in a parent meeting for a Texas high school baseball meeting, Adam Cook received a text.
The former Whitehouse High School football coach and current athletic director looked at his phone. On the sending end was Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury.
The two had developed a relationship during the recruitment of former Whitehouse star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who Kingsbury recruited to Texas Tech. Days away from the Super Bowl, Kingsbury offered Cook a ticket to watch his former athlete play the biggest game in football.
“Honestly, I never thought in a million years that he would be texting me and saying that he had a ticket,” Cook said on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station’s Burns & Gambo Show on Friday.
He showed the text, with “Kliff” as the sign-off line, to the superintendent sitting next to him. “He goes, ‘Is that Kingsbury?’ And I said ‘Yeah, that’s gotta be Kliff Kingsbury.”
Cook believes Kingsbury learned of his ticket need from Sam Farmer, who interviewed him for a Los Angeles Times article about Mahomes. During the course of the interview, Cook told Farmer that several people had asked him if Mahomes had given him a ticket.
“I said, ‘I think they’re crazy. Pat doesn’t need to give me a ticket, he needs to take care of those buddies he played with,'” Cook recalled.
From Cook’s understanding, Farmer reached out to Kingsbury.
So Kingsbury called. Cook went to the game. It was the second time he had seen Mahomes play in the NFL.
Cook had spent six years coaching Mahomes. The quarterback first started practicing with the team in the seventh grade, and split time until junior year. He broke out during a rainy day in September when then-Texas Tech assistant coach Sonny Cumbie at the game.
“At the end of that game, Sonny Cumbie came up to me and said ‘Hey, people are going to know who Patrick Mahomes is,'” Cook said.
That Kliff Kingsbury Super Bowl shirt selection is 💪💪💪 pic.twitter.com/F2XAogKkYJ
— Eric Kelly (@EricKellyTV) February 2, 2020
Through the years, Cook has developed some love for the Cardinals, too. He started enjoying them when the Bruce Arians-led group was on Amazon’s All or Nothing.
“I loved watching the Arizona Cardinals on the All or Nothing series,” Cook said. “I gotta tell you, Bruce Arians, I wrote down several quotes that joker had and use them here with my kids.”
He said quarterback Kyler Murray has “some special stuff” and is excited to see how he develops under Kingsbury. Though he likes the Chiefs for Mahomes, he has turned into a Cardinals fan, too.
“Kingsbury represents Arizona and doing that for me, that means the world to me, and I’m an Arizona Cardinal fan, too,” Cook said.
