C.J. Stroud has overcome the greatest of obstacles to become a projected top-10 NFL Draft pick and friends with Kim Kardashian.
When he was just 13, the Ohio State quarterback and his family were thrust into abject poverty when his father Coleridge was jailed for 38 years for a series of horrific crimes.
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This included carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, evading an officer with reckless driving, and misdemeanor sexual battery.
To avoid homelessness, Stroud's family, including his mother and three siblings, lived in a tiny apartment above a storage facility in Upland, California, for three years.
Stroud's promising athletics career in multiple sports could easily have been completely derailed.
But he persevered to become recruited by Ohio State, where he became a two-time Heisman Trophy finalist after leading the Buckeyes to the 2022 College Football Playoff semifinals.
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At one point, Stroud was the consensus favorite for the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, which is taking place in Kansas City from April 27-29.
His stock appears to have fallen recently, but he is still projected to become a top-10 pick.
The 21-year-old is on the cusp of completing his improbable journey of going from complete poverty to becoming a multi-millionaire NFL star.
“He had a choice when his father went away,” Stroud's mother Kimberly told Sports Illustrated.
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“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.
"I sit and I’m amazed at how resilient he is.
"C.J. is the most amazing human I have ever met.”
Stroud has described his life as going through “hell and back.”
“My pops, he was my best friend, to have your best friend be snatched like that, it was tough,” he told SI.
“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?”
Stroud has begun to make amends with his father and the two speak intermittently on the phone, including after the 2022 Heisman Trophy ceremony.
Off the field, Stroud has become heavily involved in prison reform, and he recently attended a REFORM Alliance event with Kardashian and Fanatics chief executive Michael Rubin to discuss the state of the American criminal justice system.
Stroud said he "was able to explain my story and how this issue has [affected] my life and so many more families around the country."
Stroud's father is eligible for parole in 2040.
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“People slip up. People make mistakes," Stroud told The Columbus Dispatch.
"As I’m getting older, I’m realizing how tough it is to be a man – not only a man, but a Black man in our communities."
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