CJ Stroud Had to Eat Cereal While Cockroaches Crawled Out of the Box During His Childhood

There was much debate leading into the 2023 NFL Draft about who was the better QB: C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young? The two were childhood friends from SoCal.

While both their careers are still largely unfolding, there’s no question that Stroud — selected No. 2 behind Young — has been the better playmaker through two seasons.

Stroud has led the Houston Texans to back-to-back AFC South titles and a Wild Card playoff win. He earned Offensive Rookie of the Year honors and a Pro Bowl nod as a rookie in 2023. Though Stroud regressed slightly in 2024, he still looked like a quarterback with a very high ceiling.

The Ohio State alum is likely just one or two years away from signing a mammoth deal worth over $60 million a year. But for now, he’s playing on a four-year, $36.3 million contract.

His hard work in the NFL has completely transformed his life. However, his life growing up in Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California wasn’t easy.

The Texan’s tough childhood journey

CJ revealed his tough childhood in the documentary, CJ Stroud: The Offseason, which was released in 2023. The Texans’ star was forced to make some grisly concessions while living in an apartment above a storage facility.

“When I lived in a storage — I didn’t live in the actual garage, it was like an apartment to the back — but it wasn’t a lot. It was pretty tough,” Stroud said.

“I remember pouring a bowl of cereal and roaches scattering out of it, and I still ate it because I was hungry. [Laughs] It might sound nasty, but that was the mindset I was in. Like man, I gotta eat. It is what it is,” added the quarterback.

Stroud then described how important his mother, Kimberley, was in keeping him and his three siblings above water during those lean years.

“I wasn’t gonna make my mom feel uncomfortable. That’s something that I never did. I always made sure my mom knew, I didn’t care what was going on, I was gonna have her back,” recalled CJ.

“That taught me now that you could have the world, I had a lot, I was exposed to a lot of good things growing up. So I knew wrong from right when everything went bad. But everything was snatched from me and my family, like gone. We had little to nothing.”

Broken family, father in prison

Stroud’s father, Coleridge, was booked for kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery in 2016 when CJ was just 15 years old. Due to California’s outdated three-strikes law, this meant that his father had to serve a 38-year-to-life prison sentence. He has been in Folsom State Prison since Stroud was in middle school.

Though they do talk on the phone from time to time, CJ never visited his father until after college, when his mother said they planned to have what would be a long-awaited and awkward reunion. Whether they did end up having that visit is unknown.

But forgiveness or not, Coleridge’s incarceration is what precipitated the family’s financial struggles. CJ Stroud’s talent, hard work, and dedication have alleviated his struggles and brought him success in football.

It is a difficult but inspiring story. That’s probably why the documentary  has got over 613,000 views and 15,000 likes in the 18 months since its release on YouTube.