NFL with the Colts now. Grew up in Oak Ridge and went to UH. Very inspirational.
www.nytimes.com
Excerpt
Six months later, inside a church that sat in a strip mall, wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt, shorts and sandals, Grant Stuard’s life changed. He’d gotten in another fight with his girlfriend the night before, then sat in his car alone, as lost as he’d ever felt. He sped back to Spring, slept on his dad’s floor, then drove to his cousin’s church for a morning service. He parked his Mustang a few blocks away. The back right tire was flat.
The pastor spoke. He was an ex-felon and a former drug addict.
“Somebody didn’t want to come today, but they’re here,” he began. “Somebody is struggling with their job and can’t sleep at night, but they’re here. Somebody got a flat tire on the way this morning, but they’re here.”
Grant perked up. No one had seen his car. No one could’ve known he had a flat tire.
“Now I’m paying attention,” he says.
They broke into prayer groups. A man approached.
“The feeling you had last night, sitting alone in your car? That’s the reason you’re here,” he told Grant. “That was God telling you to keep coming back.”
At this point, Grant could barely speak. Tears welled in his eyes.
How could this man have known?
How could anybody have known?
“I hadn’t told a soul about the night before,” Grant says. “And for me, that was God showing me he existed. He was telling me he cared about me, like genuinely cared about me, something that was missing my whole life. For a long time football filled that void. Then girls filled that void. I always had this feeling I had to do everything for my siblings and everything for myself, and I always ended up feeling alone.”
A weight was lifted.
“He wasn’t there by accident, that’s what we kept telling him,” says Megan McCullum, who also spoke that morning. A former drug addict herself, McCullum worked in the same club as Grant’s mom a decade prior. After getting pregnant, she left the job and turned her life around. She got clean. She became a pastor. She started a family.
Grant saw the hope. In that moment, he clung to it.
Then he cut the toxicity from his life. He grew closer to God. He stopped lying, stopped cheating, stopped feeling like he had to be everything to everybody. He met the woman who’d become his wife, Josie, and proposed within a year. He came clean to his coaches and re-dedicated himself to football.
“He comes into my office one day in tears and tells me everything,” Gideon remembers. “I’m like, ‘Whoa, what?’ I’m sitting there watching a third down cutup, like that matters in that moment.’”
The coach listened. He counseled. He kept his phone on all hours of the night, urging Grant to call whenever he needed. Then he leveled with him. “The best version of you is good enough,” Gideon told Grant before his senior year. “Keep working and you could change everything for your brother and sister.”
Translation: The NFL wasn’t out of the question.
‘I lied about everything’: An NFL player hid his family trauma until he saved them — and himself
The Indianapolis Colts' Grant Stuard endured a traumatic childhood, raised two siblings and helped his mother get sober.
www.nytimes.com
Excerpt
Six months later, inside a church that sat in a strip mall, wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt, shorts and sandals, Grant Stuard’s life changed. He’d gotten in another fight with his girlfriend the night before, then sat in his car alone, as lost as he’d ever felt. He sped back to Spring, slept on his dad’s floor, then drove to his cousin’s church for a morning service. He parked his Mustang a few blocks away. The back right tire was flat.
The pastor spoke. He was an ex-felon and a former drug addict.
“Somebody didn’t want to come today, but they’re here,” he began. “Somebody is struggling with their job and can’t sleep at night, but they’re here. Somebody got a flat tire on the way this morning, but they’re here.”
Grant perked up. No one had seen his car. No one could’ve known he had a flat tire.
“Now I’m paying attention,” he says.
They broke into prayer groups. A man approached.
“The feeling you had last night, sitting alone in your car? That’s the reason you’re here,” he told Grant. “That was God telling you to keep coming back.”
At this point, Grant could barely speak. Tears welled in his eyes.
How could this man have known?
How could anybody have known?
“I hadn’t told a soul about the night before,” Grant says. “And for me, that was God showing me he existed. He was telling me he cared about me, like genuinely cared about me, something that was missing my whole life. For a long time football filled that void. Then girls filled that void. I always had this feeling I had to do everything for my siblings and everything for myself, and I always ended up feeling alone.”
A weight was lifted.
“He wasn’t there by accident, that’s what we kept telling him,” says Megan McCullum, who also spoke that morning. A former drug addict herself, McCullum worked in the same club as Grant’s mom a decade prior. After getting pregnant, she left the job and turned her life around. She got clean. She became a pastor. She started a family.
Grant saw the hope. In that moment, he clung to it.
Then he cut the toxicity from his life. He grew closer to God. He stopped lying, stopped cheating, stopped feeling like he had to be everything to everybody. He met the woman who’d become his wife, Josie, and proposed within a year. He came clean to his coaches and re-dedicated himself to football.
“He comes into my office one day in tears and tells me everything,” Gideon remembers. “I’m like, ‘Whoa, what?’ I’m sitting there watching a third down cutup, like that matters in that moment.’”
The coach listened. He counseled. He kept his phone on all hours of the night, urging Grant to call whenever he needed. Then he leveled with him. “The best version of you is good enough,” Gideon told Grant before his senior year. “Keep working and you could change everything for your brother and sister.”
Translation: The NFL wasn’t out of the question.
