When a professional athlete changes teams, it can lead to massive upheaval for the entire family — just ask Kirk Cousins.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Cousins, 36, detailed the life-altering summer he, his wife, Julie, and their sons, Cooper, 6, and Turner, 5, have experienced after the quarterback signed with the Atlanta Falcons in March following six seasons with the Minnesota Vikings.
“Our boys have been pretty resilient,” Cousins told Us while promoting his partnership with Frito-Lay Variety Packs. “They’re handling it well. We put them in three different schools this year because we had them in a school in Minnesota. Then when the season ended, we put them in a school in Michigan. Then when we moved to Atlanta, we put them in a school there.”
He added, “There’s a resilience there. They almost don’t know any different.”
However, just because his two sons have become impressively adaptable doesn’t mean it’s always been easy on Cousins himself.
“There have been times where I’ve dropped them off at a new activity with all new kids, a new teacher, a new coach, and I’m apprehensive for them,” he admitted. “Like I hesitate to leave and get in the car and walk away, but they look at me like, ‘We’re good, Dad. It’s fine.’ It kind of hits me like, ‘Okay, these kids are maybe even more resilient than me.’”
When it comes to being aware that their dad is one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in the NFL, Cousins said his sons “have been young enough to this point where ignorance is bliss,” but joked as they get older, “we’re just entering that stage where maybe it’s not.”
“They’re starting to realize the kids at school give me a little preferential treatment,” he said. “I’ve had to pay attention closely because they’ll subtly try and use that to their advantage and I’ll just say, ‘Hey Cooper, hey Turner, let’s not do that.’”
He continued, “They’re really too young to understand why, but we are trying to instill in them even before they understand why, that it’s better to just keep it lowkey, We don’t need to advertise. We’re just one of the guys. I hope and pray that sinks in because I don’t want them to be anything other than that.”
As Cousins gears up for his first season in Atlanta — which kicks off Sunday, September 8, when the Falcons host the Pittsburgh Steelers — he and his family are also well-prepared for the new school year thanks to his partnership with Frito-Lay Variety Packs.
“My kids are going into first grade and kindergarten, so this is the fall where it’s like, ‘OK, here we are. We’re packing lunches. We’re doing the whole deal,’” Cousins explained. “Frito-Lay is just such an iconic brand that you see everywhere and you remember from your school lunches. And now I’m putting them in my kids’ lunches.”
Frito is continuing its partnership with GENYOUth to fight student hunger and food insecurity by donating $300,000 to provide meal carts to schools nationwide, including an additional donation made in Cousins’ name to benefit students in Atlanta.
To learn more about GENYOUth, visit www.tastyrewards.com/en-us/back-to-school, and for a limited time, enter for the chance to win a variety of prizes including a grand prize of $5,000.