Stroud draws strength from humble stock
Bills hope trade with Jaguars for three-time Pro Bowler pays off big
Barney, Ga. is a quiet little farm community (population less than 1,200) where the days are long and the nights are quiet. The only activity occurs during harvest time when the pecan, peaches, cotton and tobacco crops come in.
If you want to live in a place without the big-city amenities, Barney is the place to be. For action, folks have to drive 20 miles to Valdosta or Moultrie, places that won’t remind anyone of Atlanta.
It’s a simple life in Barney, where honest, church-going folk put God first and put the values of family and respecting one’s neighbor above all else.
“Barney is the kind of place where everybody looks out for each other,” said Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Marcus Stroud. “It was a great place to grow up.”
You heard of the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child.” Well, that’s Barney. Stroud was under the watchful eye of friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and oh yes, his mother and father.
Kenneth and Thelma Mc-Donald didn’t spoil their only child, but as Stroud points out, they sure didn’t spare the rod either. “Tough love,” is how Stroud described it.
The most important thing the McDonalds taught their son was you have to work hard for what you get. And they did work hard. Watching his parents hold down two jobs so he could have the basic necessities left an indelible impression.
“I know how to push through it when I’m tired because I’ve seen days when they didn’t want to work those jobs, but they did it to make ends meet,” Stroud said. “I respect that and that’s why I try to take that same approach on the field.”
None of the Bills’ offseason acquisitions is more important than Stroud, the three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle acquired in a trade with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Bills expect the 6-foot-6, 310-pounder to be a disruptive force and provide the kind of run-stuffing prowess they’ve lacked since Pat Williams left town three years ago. They also hope Stroud will occupy blockers and free up teammates like defensive end Aaron Schobel and middle linebacker Paul Posluszny to make more plays.
“As you know, the size by itself is not a factor,” head coach Dick Jauron said. “There are a lot of very large people who can’t play the game at all. But his skill level is very high, his knowledge of the game is very high. He’s a physical player inside, very hard to match up against for an offensive lineman.”
Just ask Brad Butler. The Bills’ 6-7, 315-pound right guard was knocked on his rear end by Stroud during a pass-blocking drill in training camp.
“Yeah, he pancaked me,” Butler told reporters afterward. “He’s a big, physical guy who never takes one play off.”
Something to prove
Stroud’s arrival creates new and exciting possibilities for defensive coordinator Perry Fewell. He has changed the role of the defensive tackles, making them more interchangeable, to accommodate Stroud’s talent.
“Marcus is a great addition to this defense,” Fewell said. “We just have to keep him healthy.”
Ah, yes. Injuries are a big reason Stroud is no longer in Jacksonville. He missed five games and eventually had surgery on his right ankle in 2006.
He appeared in only nine games last season, missing four because of an NFL suspension for violating the league’s steroids and related substances policy (he admitted taking possibly tainted supplements to help recover from ankle surgery). After returning from suspension, Stroud reinjured his ankle and spent the final three games on injured reserve.
Jaguars observers say Stroud hasn’t been close to the four-year stretch from 2002-05 when he made three straight Pro Bowl starts while registering 322 tackles and 16z o 1/4 his 22 career sacks.
Stroud is eager to show the Bills — and Jaguars — there’s a lot of football left in him.
“He’s got a big chip on his shoulder,” Posluszny said. “He’s very motivated right now, and that’s good for us.”
While the Bills believe Stroud can return to Pro Bowl form, they don’t know for sure.
“I think the games will determine that,” Fewell said. “When you go against your teammate in practice every day, you can get a false sense so you have to look at the ball games. But he is an excellent football player. His play will tell us where he’s at.”
Humble superstar
Stroud knows the Bills want him to be a star, but they won’t get him to act like one. He is as humble as a high-profile athlete can be. You can thank his parents for that.
Kenneth and Thelma Mc-Donald never let Stroud get too big for his britches, though that was rarely an issue growing up.
“He was a good kid,” said Kenneth, who married Thelma when Stroud was 2. Stroud, who has his mother’s maiden name, has no contact with his biological father and thinks of Kenneth as his real dad.
“Marcus was a normal kid,” Kenneth said. “He was very respectable and did what we told him.”
Stroud did have a mischievous side. The escapades of Stroud and his cousin and closest friend, Lisa McDonald, are legendary in Barney. But his most memorable childhood antic occurred when, at age 10, he took his father’s Toyota Celica for a joy ride.
The family would later learn that Stroud and Lisa, who was a few years older, had taken the car out for a spin before. Lisa always insisted he not drive without her, but one day Stroud decided to go solo.
While his father was at work, Stroud got the keys and turned on the ignition. The car was a stick shift and already in first gear. When Marcus stepped on the gas pedal without touching the clutch, the car jerked forward and rammed into the family’s home. The hood of the car was severly damaged, and when his father got home, Stroud spin-doctored a story that would make any public relations firm proud.
“He was trying to assure us that somebody must have stolen the car,” Thelma said. “But we were like, ‘Well, how did they get the keys?’ and he said, ‘Uh, I don’t know.’ He kind of had my husband convinced, but I kept thinking he did it.
“That’s how Marcus was when he did something. He always had an explanation. But whatever his excuse was I knew it wasn’t logical even if it sounded logical to him.”
Fortunately, that was the worst thing Stroud ever did. He was too involved with sports to get into bigger trouble.
Stroud played basketball, but football was his first love. Problem was, his mother didn’t love the idea, fearing her boy would get hurt.
But Maurice Freeman wouldn’t take no for an answer. Hired as the football coach at Brooks County High School in the spring of 1994, Freeman was introduced to Stroud by a teacher friend and knew he had to have the strapping 6-4, 250-pound sophomore.
“I knew with the size he had and the way he was able to move that he was a football player,” said Freeman, who is back at Brooks County after leaving in 1998 for other coaching opportunities. “But yeah, his mom was tough to convince. I don’t know how many people I called that were related to him, trying to help me out and ask his mom to let him play because he could be a player for me. I think the granddaddy was the one that convinced her.”
A star was born
It didn’t take long for Freeman to know he had something special. As a raw junior, Stroud dominated opponents with his quickness, strength and athletic ability while helping lead Brooks County to the Georgia Class A state championship.
“No one could block him,” Freeman said. “People ran away from his side, which helped us defend teams better.”
As a senior, Stroud was one of the country’s most coveted recruits. He initially committed to Florida, but changed his mind on signing day and went with Georgia. He got national attention when Sports Illustrated put him on its Feb. 19, 1996 cover ripping a Gator shirt in half and revealing a Georgia Bulldog underneath.
Florida wasn’t pleased with Stroud’s very public snub, but Georgia fans were thrilled.
At Georgia, Stroud and Richard Seymour of the New England Patriots were arguably the best defensive tackle tandem in college football and both became first-round picks in the 2001 NFL draft. Stroud, who was chosen 13th overall by the Jaguars, didn’t start as a rookie, but blossomed in his second year with 79 tackles and a career-high 6z 1/3 1/2 ck 1/3 .
Stroud hoped to spend his entire career in Jacksonville, which just happens to be a two-hour drive from Barney. But he’s happy in Buffalo and looks forward to a future much brighter than his past.
“I’m glad to make a new start in a place where I am wanted and where I can make an impact,” Stroud said. “I didn’t want to be one of those guys who did good at one and went somewhere else and fell off. If you don’t perform it’s definitely highlighted, so I try to use that as motivation.
“But it’s not about me. It’s about this team working together to be successful. I just want to do my part to create a winning situation here.”
