Snoop Dog Brings Texans Star C.J. Stroud to Jimmy Kimmel — The National Profile of Houston’s Most Popular Athlete Continues to Grow

The gospel of Houston Texans wunderkind rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud continues to be spread nationwide. Often by some seemingly surprising disciples. The latest? Snoop Dogg brought Stroud to Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week and the talk show and Oscar host showed plenty of familiarity with the man who’s now clearly Houston’s most popular athlete.

When Jimmy Kimmel asked Snoop Dogg who the most famous player to come out of the pot-loving rapper’s youth football league in Los Angeles, Snoop name dropped Stroud. Who Kimmel immediately identified as the likely NFL Rookie of the Year winner for Houston.

Yes, it’s good to have Snoop Dogg spreading your name. Of course, Snoop and Stroud’s bond goes much deeper than that. The rapper turned movie actor, who is mainstream enough to have done a Super Bowl halftime show, visited Stroud in Houston early this season.

“I seen hin when he went to Houston, checked in when he had his first preseason game, during the season.” Dogg tells Kimmel. “He’s a strong kid. He’s brought up right. His mother deserves a lot of credit for being that single mother. Then his father from a distance raising him as well.

“It’s the whole village that it takes to raise these kids.”

C.J. Stroud’s mom Kimberly Stroud struggled and fought to keep the family afloat after Stroud’s dad Coleridge Bernard Stroud III was incarcerated. Kimberly Stroud raised her four kids in a small apartment above a storage facility with homelessness often a threat. Now, she’s become a fixture at Texans games and something of a TV star for her very vocal, even while bundled up in a giant coat, support of her son during the Texans’ playoff game at Baltimore.

Stroud frequently praises his mom for her strength — and he also advocates for criminal justice reform due to what his dad’s experienced. The quarterback’s father pleaded guilty to carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, evading, reckless driving and misdemeanor sexual battery in 2015. Coleridge Bernard Stroud III got sentenced to 38 years in prison, the length of the sentence determined in part by his repeat offender status, for those crimes.

Now Stroud is speaking out about the squalid conditions many inmates face and using “Free Pops” on some of his social media posts.

“He’s a strong kid. He’s brought up right. His mother deserves a lot of credit for being that single mother. Then his father from a distance raising him as well.” — Snoop Dogg on Texans QB C.J. Stroud

Snoop Dogg knows what a kid like Stroud faces in the Los Angeles neighborhoods where he grew up. That’s why he started the football league, to provide something of a safe haven in an often unsafe everyday reality. The rapper doesn’t try to take any credit for Stroud’s emergence as an NFL star though.

“It’s not just one person,” Snoop Dogg tells Kimmel of giving kids like Stroud a better chance. “It’s just my league gets the respect and the name so it seems like I did it. But it’s never I. It’s always we.”

Snoop Dogg also revealed that his wife loves Costco and that he babysits his grandkids now. This 52-year-0ld rapper’s life is very different these days. Even if there’s still plenty of smoke. And love for survivors who thrive like C.J. Stroud.

A rap legend brought the 22-year-old quarterback’s name to Jimmy Kimmel. But it seems like only a matter of time before C.J. Stroud is on the show himself.