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Friday night in the fall is hunting season for LaGrange High’s Spencer Stroud. The towering defensive end for the Grangers has eyes firmly set on slamming opposing quarterbacks to the turf as evidenced by his four sacks through the first three games of the season.

“Man, I love a good sack because everyone sees you’re in the backfield, and the whole focus is on you,” Stroud said, flashing a big grin.

While not a LaGrange native by birth, Stroud moved here from South Alabama in the sixth grade and has called Troup County home ever since.

Before moving to LaGrange, Stroud was a two-sport athlete having played baseball as well. He decided to focus on football for the first few years in his new home. 

“With baseball, I feel like you just need connections to some stuff and do travel ball and all that. They play all year too, but football, you know, you don’t really play but in the fall and if you’re a football player, coaches will find you,” Stroud said. “Football is how I made all my friends when I moved here.”

Now, Stroud is back to being a two-sport athlete but it is not baseball that keeps his spring busy. Stroud is a member of the LaGrange High track and field team where he participates in the triple jump and the long jump. 

The senior uses that agility and lower body strength to great effect on the football field.

As he goes full speed ahead into his final year in blue and white, Stroud is still soaking in the fact that he truly is a senior.

“It probably won’t sink in until senior night, homecoming and the Troup game,” Stroud said. “It’s flying by, I can’t believe we are already in the fourth week of the season.”

It has been quite the journey to get to be a starter at the varsity level. Stroud had to scrape and crawl for playing time the past several years due to the depth along the defensive line. As a junior, he would occasionally get in the game, but was still a regular on JV.

“I’ve been waiting for my opportunity for so long,” Stroud said. “It feels like forever because I played a whole lot of JV, and it’s finally my chance, and I’m making the most of it.

“We had a really deep group, like a really good group at D line last year, and I wasn’t getting a whole lot of playing time, so I played a lot of JV, but it helped me prepare for my chance.”

Stroud waited for his moment and it finally came this season. In week one against Douglass, Stroud started his first career varsity game and made an instant impact. One week later, he had his best game as a Granger, registering three sacks to go along with seven tackles and two tackles for a loss.

Despite putting up gaudy numbers, Stroud is more focused on consistently making positive plays than any sort of statistic.

“I just kind of focused on, or want to focus on doing my job, you know, setting my teammates up,” Stroud said. “I don’t want to set a personal goal just because I don’t want to be bummed out, because you can have a good game and not have the best stat line.”

Stroud is a big, physical presence on any football field he walks on and one of the main reasons is LaGrange High strength and conditioning coach Tyler Eady. With the help of Eady, Stroud has turned his tall, lanky frame into one packed with muscle.

Despite his immense talent and physical frame, Stroud currently had no intentions of playing football at the next level. He plans to keep an open mind, but this very well could be his final ride on the gridiron and he plans to make the most of it. 

“I’ve been trying to soak in every moment since our first practice this summer,” he said.