In Round 1 of the 2018 NFL Draft, Sam Darnold was voted 3rd by the New York Jets, a choice that came as no surprise to many who have followed his career since his high school days.
It is now expected that the young man will have a great career in the National Football League (NFL). Here is everything you need to know about him.
Sam Darnold Biography
June 5, 1997, was the day the NFL star was born as Samuel Richard Darnold on Capistrano Beach, California. He was raised, along with a sister, by a mother who was a teacher and his father who worked for a construction company. Sam grew up in Orange County in a family that was not very rich.
His love for sports did not start with him, as you could say it is in his genes. While his father played soccer at Redlands University, his mother, Chris Darnold, played college volleyball when she was at Long Beach City College. Even more, his sister, Franki, also played college volleyball.
Considering how good he is in the league as a young player, you might think that he started playing when he was a kid. Well, actually he started before he was six, but instead of soccer, his sport was basketball.
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For his education, Sam attended San Clemente High School in California, where he became an avid sportsman playing football, baseball, and basketball. More interesting was the fact that he was good at all.
There Sam Darnold played soccer at different times as a wide receiver and linebacker as well as a quarterback. After a very successful high school career, he received a number of scholarships, among others for the University of Oregon, the University of Utah, and Duke University. But then he decided to go to the University of Southern California.
After playing for USC in the 2016 and 2017 seasons, winning the Archie Griffin Award, and advancing to the All-America rookie team of the Football Writers Association of America, he announced his readiness to play in the 2018 NFL Draft. Sam was then selected by the New York Jets.
Height, Weight, and Body Stats
As mentioned above, Darnold not only started with football, but also played other sports such as basketball and baseball, and he was amazingly good at all of these sports, especially basketball. Besides his love for the sport and his talent, his athletic physique and his size contributed significantly to this success.
The man, who could definitely be the tallest in many assemblies, stands at a height of 1.91 m (1.91 ft 3 in). Even more, he has a bodyweight of 225 lb (102 kg). Sam Darnold has a hand that measures 9 3/8″ and although his general body measurements are not given, he certainly has a large arm that is ideal for the game.
Other Facts to Know
1. The man we know as Sam Darnold was almost called Buck at birth because his father wanted him to be tough. But back then, his mother didn’t want her son to be called Buck, so we have him now as Sam.
2. In his high school days, he became an MVP in the South Coast League a couple of times during a basketball game.
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3. Although it will be hard for many to believe, Sam is a very shy child despite his athletic intelligence. You can easily be fooled by his stature, but he is really soft in language.
4. Before he became a big name in the USC and then in the NFL, his grandfather was also a big name. He was the first Marlboro Man, and just like his grandson, Dick Hammer was a great athlete. The only thing more than that is that he was part of the 1964 U.S. Olympic Volleyball Team. 10 years earlier he played for the USC basketball team and made it into the last four. Considering that that’s all, his maternal grandmother also played volleyball, and she shared the gene with her children, including Sam’s mother.
5. He has a girlfriend, Claire Kirksey. The couple’s picture first appeared on social media in 2016. Before that, however, Claire had already had a couple of relationships based on the images on her Instagram.
6. Because he is very introverted when Sam Darnold was first introduced to her parents by Claire Kirksey, the parents thought he was afraid of them.
