During a Tuesday episode of The Brotherhood Podcast, [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] explained the somber reason why he switched to the No. 2 jersey with the Blue Devils.
Flagg told sophomore teammate Caleb Foster that he wanted to honor Donovan Kurt, who played basketball with Flagg’s older brother, Hunter, at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine. Kurt passed away from brain cancer in November 2022 at just 19 years old.
“He really impacted my life in a big way,” Flagg said. “Being able to represent him really meant a lot to me.”
Flagg attended Nokomis Regional as a freshman in 2021-22, winning the state championship alongside Hunter and his twin brother, Ace. Kurt graduated the year before, however, so the two did not share the court.
Flagg wore the number 32 throughout his high school career, sporting it as a freshman at Nokomis and keeping it when he transferred to Montverde Academy. He explained earlier in the episode that his mother wore that number when she played in high school.
Flagg said that the number 32 gained extra importance for him because his mother’s college teammate, Stacey Clingan, wore the same number at the University of Maine. She passed away from breast cancer in 2018. Her son, Donovan Clingan, wore the number 32 with the Connecticut Huskies.