“I Knew That the Drugs Were the Catalyst Behind My Poor Choices”: CJ Stroud’s Father Talks About Past Mistakes and Road to Rehabilitation

Coleridge Bernard Stroud III, father of Houston Texans QB CJ Stroud, has missed the majority of his son’s life after getting sentenced to 38 years in prison in 2015.

During that nine-year absence, CJ went from a high school athlete to a college star and then an NFL quarterback, now leading the Texans to great heights. Bernard Stroud missed all that time, never even being able to watch his son play — something that was the result of his poor choices, which, as he admitted, stemmed from his drug use.

“I knew that the drugs were the catalyst behind my poor choices and bad decisions that I made,” Bernard Stroud said during an interview with Between The Lines.

He also stated that after getting incarcerated, there were no programs available to him (in jail) that could help him turn his life around. Getting rid of bad habits and adopting good ones, for starters. So, he decided to try his own method and reach out to the one entity he could always count on: God.

Bernard Stroud is currently serving his time at Folsom State Prison. As he revealed in the video, a group of men, including him, started reading the “Word of God” there. And they started taking “ownership” of why they had been incarcerated.

With this, Bernard Stroud was able to achieve, what he claims, “a renewed mind” that no longer conforms to the old, bad habits he once had.

Despite the progress Bernard Stroud seems to have made in his rehabilitation, sadly, he won’t be eligible for parole until the year 2040. He will turn 74 that year.

His 4-decade-long sentence came after Bernard Stroud pleaded guilty to charges like carjacking, robbery, kidnapping, reckless driving, evading an officer, and misdemeanor sexual battery. This long sentence followed what is reported as an incident in which Bernard jumped into San Diego Bay to escape from police after trying to rob a woman’s car, and even demanding her to take him somewhere for the purchase of drugs.

Bernard’s criminal record doesn’t end there; he also had several run-ins with the law in the ’90s, including convictions for armed robbery, illegal drug possession, and more.

CJ, who was distant from his father a few years ago, now sees him as a changed man. The star quarterback has been advocating for prison reforms for a while, even speaking about his father in his speeches. He once wore ‘Free Pops‘ on his sneakers to a game.