Texans QB C.J. Stroud says building trust and fostering strong relationships have helped him acclimate to the NFL quickly. Elizabeth Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. She previously wrote for The Kansas City Star and The Omaha World-Herald.
How has the recently turned 22-year-old quarterback fit in so seamlessly with such poise, confidence and efficiency in one of the most demanding jobs in sports? Brooks and other people close to Stroud know. They tell the stories of Coleridge Bernard Stroud IV, whose toughest challenges came long before professional football.
"And whenever he would see another quarterback or another football player doing something, he would just study them until he could do it, that's just how he's always been. Very determined."The Strouds put C.J. in a variety of sports to see what he liked. He played baseball for a few years, and even pitched. But he found it boring. He tried soccer, but that lasted only one season.Basketball was the Stroud family passion.
Brooks collaborated with big names, such as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur. He was making money and living a fast life, and then one day Snoop Dogg introduced him to youth football,"I didn't understand what the hell he was doing," Brooks says. But then he saw how much Snoop loved being with the kids, and soon enough, he picked up a whistle. Coaching children gave him conviction, he says. It gave him a conscience.
Coleridge, Kimberly says, is an intelligent man with a deep faith in God. He was once an executive at a telecommunications company. They were once a happy family, running their own church, living in a house in Rancho Cucamonga. Kimberly got angry watching her son holding play-calling signs when she believed he was good enough to be on the field.
All that changed a few months later. Stroud was invited to the Elite 11 quarterback camp in Texas. He was of the lowest-ranked quarterbacks at the event, and one of the only players whose parents didn't hire a personal coach for him. Over the course of the weekend, Stroud outperformed everyone and was named MVP.
Babb, a four-star recruit from St. Louis, had logged two years in Columbus when Stroud arrived, but hadn't seen the field. He tore an ACL the summer before his first training camp, missed the entire 2018 season then suffered another knee injury the following spring. He tore an ACL four times, twice in each knee.
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