Motivated by His Dad’s Story, C.J. Stroud Advocates for Prison Reform

Jan. 8 2024, Published 3:21 p.m. ET

Quarterback C.J. Stroud is already making his mark at the NFL in his rookie season, having racked up greater than 4,000 passing yards as he helped the Houston Texans achieve the playoffs for the primary time since 2019. But he just wants his dad, who's these days serving a 38-year prison sentence, to be cheering him on from the sidelines.

“I’m praying to God that something can happen that he can get out and come to this type of games, man,” Stroud instructed journalists in November 2023, in line with For the Win. “I’ve been praying for him a lot, and I didn’t want to make this public, but our felony justice gadget isn’t proper. And it’s one thing that I would like to almost certainly be somewhat extra vocal about as a result of what he’s going thru isn't proper.”

C.J. Stroud’s dad was sentenced to prison when the longer term NFL celebrity was once a teenager.

C.J.’s oldsters are Kimberly Stroud and Coleridge Bernard Stroud III. They were given married in 1997 and welcomed kids Isaiah, Asmar, Ciara, and C.J. before 2012, when Kimberly filed for divorce, in accordance to People. Coleridge, a former pastor, was sentenced to prison a couple of years later when C.J. was once just Thirteen years previous.

According to CNN, Coleridge pled accountable in 2015 to charges of carjacking, kidnapping, theft, evading an officer with reckless using, and misdemeanor sexual battery. He received a 38-year sentence because he used to be a repeat culprit.

At a 2018 enchantment, Coleridge said that his lifestyles “spun out of keep watch over” after he and Kimberly broke up in 2012 and that he “started using illegal medicine once more after greater than 20 years of sobriety,” as Sports Illustrated reported in a 2022 profile of C.J.

Meanwhile, the younger athlete had a call to make, as Kimberly advised Sports Illustrated: “He used to be going to let that encourage him and be the most efficient, or he was going to succumb to it and turn out to be a statistic of a kid whose mother or father did one thing they shouldn’t.”

Now C.J. is talking up prison reform and “how we can get things fixed.”

In February 2023, when he was once nonetheless an Ohio State quarterback, C.J. attended a REFORM Alliance tournament with Kim Kardashian, then-Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin.

“Was blessed to be in a position to have a super dinner the opposite night to speak about and shine light on prison reform and our corrupt legal justice device and how we will get things fastened,” he tweeted on the time. “Was ready to provide an explanation for my tale and the way the issue has [affected] my life and such a lot of extra households around the nation.”

REFORM Alliance — which Rubin launched with Jay-Z, Meek Mill, and other founders in 2019 — seeks to “transform probation and parole by way of converting laws, methods, and tradition to create actual pathways to paintings and wellbeing,” in accordance to its website.

“People slip up,” C.J. advised The Columbus Dispatch in September 2022. “People make errors. As I’m growing old, I’m realizing how tough it is to be a man — not only a guy, but a Black man in our communities.”

But the quarterback mentioned he was thriving as a result of he had an understanding “that doing the fitting thing is the correct approach and letting God lead your lifestyles is one of the best ways.”

“That’s what I realized from my father,” he added.

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