Quarterback C.J. Stroud’s Family Guide: How He Made Amends With His Dad in Prison
usmagazine.comAhead of the 2023 NFL draft, C.J. Stroud was candid about his rocky relationship with his dad — and his life off the football field.According to Sports Illustrated, C.J.’s father, Coleridge Bernard Stroud III, is currently serving a 38-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to carjacking, kidnapping, robbery and misdemeanor sexual battery charges in 2015.“My pops, he was my best friend, to have your best friend be snatched like that, it was tough,” the quarterback told the outlet in December 2022. “I just look at the things my dad did that were positive, but for a while, I wasn’t like that.
I hated my pops, for real. Like man, how could you leave me like that?”His mother, Kimberly, noted that her son stepped up amid the adversity, explaining that Coleridge’s strained relationship with C.J.
began when the athlete was in middle school as his dad would “show up in spurts.”“He had a choice when his father went away.
He was going to let that motivate him and be the best or he was going to succumb to it and become a statistic of a kid whose parent did something they shouldn’t,” she said. “I sit and I’m amazed at how resilient he is.
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