Bears’ Colston Loveland won’t gab about his success, but his people back in Idaho were happy to

Chad Loveland reached for his son.

Alas, Colston Loveland was a bit preoccupied at that moment, busily racing for the goal line with a 58-yard touchdown catch to win a game for the Bears in Cincinnati. And dad? He was in his living room, nearly 2,000 miles away in Gooding, Idaho.

But Chad stood there with his arms out just the same, overcome by parental reflex.

‘‘I had a feeling they were going to target him down the middle to set up a field goal and was in shock when he stayed upright and took off running!’’ Chad explained via text about watching the most momentous play of the season for the 5-3 Bears — and certainly for their first-round rookie tight end — in a wild Week 9 victory against the Bengals.. ‘‘If I could have reached through the TV to push him along, I would have. It was incredible!’’

Mom Rachel Faulkner was at her place in Gooding watching with Cash, Loveland’s high school freshman brother. They’d had plans to take in the game with family and friends at a neighbor’s house, but after traveling for Cash’s weekend playoff game, they were feeling ‘‘cozy and lazy’’ on the couch, Rachel said.

But on that touchdown play? With her largest offspring at the 30 . . . the 20 . . . the 10 . . . ?

‘‘Jumping and screaming, laughing and crying,’’ she texted. ‘‘Tears of joy, of course, and so much pride for Cole and his team. He has worked so hard and has kept his faith and kept his head up, never given up and never given in. We couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves it all.’’

Loveland himself isn’t as quick to articulate his feelings about his breakthrough moment or anything else that might be filed under ‘‘individual’’ success.

Take Wednesday at Halas Hall when Loveland, the NFC’s Offensive Player of the Week, walked into the locker room covered in green goo. Why in the world? Because he also had won Nickelodeon’s weekly Valuable Player award — yes, there is such a thing — and teammates Olamide Zaccheaus and Tyrique Stevenson had distracted him so Caleb Williams and Theo Benedet could douse him in slime.

What 21-year-old wouldn’t be elated by that?

‘‘Pretty cool, but, yeah, on to [the next game],’’ Loveland said.

Well, the winning touchdown — his second of a six-catch, 118-yard game — had to be utterly amazing in the moment. Right?

‘‘It was more important for the team,’’ he said. ‘‘Whatever we needed to do to get a win.’’

Cam Andersen, who was Loveland’s coach at Gooding High School, watched the game an hour away in Burley, where he now lives and coaches. Breaking in a brand-new Bears cap that arrived Friday, Andersen — an NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber — had multiple TVs tuned to different games in his basement, but the goings-on in Cincy had his undivided attention. When the Bears, on what turned into their final offensive play, motioned a wide receiver away from Loveland, Andersen’s leg started shaking.

‘‘As it does when I’m nervous,’’ he texted. ‘‘I knew they were going to target him in the seam . . . [and] when he caught it, I jumped up and celebrated. As he spun out of it, I screamed, ‘You better go!’ ’’

The clock was ticking under 20 seconds, and the Bears were out of timeouts.

‘‘ ‘Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!’ ’’ Andersen recalled screaming. ‘‘And then I kind of erupted and ran around the room.’’

See, now that’s giving a reporter the good stuff.

On Thursday, I took a run at Loveland, hoping these anecdotes from his people back home would soften him up. They did — a little.

‘‘I mean, to be in a position to do something like that and then go out there and do it? With all the support from my family and my teammates? Wow,’’ he said.

On a team bus after the game, Loveland pulled out his phone and saw there were even more texts than he had received on the night the Bears drafted him No. 10 overall. Dozens upon dozens were from family and friends back home, and he read every word.

His first call, the next day, was to his mom, with Cash on speaker.

‘‘Man, that was so cool,’’ Cash told his big brother, whom he idolizes. ‘‘You needed that.’’

His mom cried some more.

Any chance Loveland did, too?

‘‘Nah,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not a super-emotional guy. It takes a lot for me to shed a tear.’’

One other thing I wanted to know. After Loveland scored the winning touchdown Sunday, he kept yelling something. It was pure emotion, that was clear to see, but what was he saying?

‘‘I don’t remember,’’ he said. ‘‘I blacked out.’’

Sorry, he was told. Not buying it.

‘‘OK, I’ll tell you,’’ he said. ‘‘It was, ‘This is my . . . .’ ’’

At that, he raised his eyebrows.

The last word starts with an ‘‘S.’’

Just don’t expect Loveland to fill in the blank for you.