The Kansas City Chiefs cornerback L’Jarius Sneed has suffered a lot throughout his whole life. And now that he is living a life he needed to live, the trauma of his past haunts him and makes him feel inferior and insecure.
And the burden that he carries with an infectious family tree does not make him feel any better. L’Jarius is the only member in his family to break the curse his family has been haunted for generations.
He is the only one in his family to make it big enough in life. But now that he has all the stardom and limelight, his messed up childhood memories have been repeating rewind in his head all the time.
An unusual childhood of the Kansas City Chiefs cornerback
The cornerback rarely had the affection and the presence of both his parents, as both of them were serving terms in jail when L’Jarius needed them the most. Father Non Sneed had L’Jarius when he was in jail, serving for attempted murder.
And at the tender age of just one, he also got parted from his mother for 51 months. Though L’Jarius lived with his maternal grandmother, but when asked who raised him, he says, “my two brothers,” without any hesitation.
His oldest brother, TQ Harrison, changed his diapers, cooked the meals, and walked his brother to school. Even to this day, Harrison talks about L’Jarius as more like a son than his brother.
L’Jarius was just six when, during his walk back home from school, his mother surprised him, as she had been free six years before his father. And with that, a long path of weekly one-hour meetings with his mother was over.
Now he could have dreams of having a family again. And so he waited to the day his father came out of prison as he made plans for what he would do with them together.
But fate had other plans as his father decided to divorce his mother and move to Dallas, shattering the hopes of the 12-year-old who was waiting so long for this day. But when his father did not arrive, he knew that his old man was gone for good.
L’Jarius Sneed breaks the family curse
But last year when L’Jarius signed his rookie contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, he was offered a personal chef, but he chose to pick his father who had gone to culinary school during his time in jail. He forgave his father for abandoning him as he said, “We’re straight now,” L’Jarius says. “Like it never happened, you know? I forgave him. He is my father, you know? He brought me into this world.”
However, it is not just his father or mother who has served time in jail. Sneed’s paternal grandfather has spent almost 50 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for burglary that led to a resident being killed. However, earlier this year, he was granted parole.
In the recent Chiefs game, L’Jarius secured a sideline pass and dedicated it to his mom who was watching him from the sidelines, as was his father and his two brothers. “Look at him now,” she says. “My son, he could’ve had this curse all his life, but he’s not what the statistics say about him. He’s not what the past says about him. Look at him now.”
