Trindon’s not-so Holliday Like Journey
It seems that the Texans have been gifted with stars that shine through the pre-season and make their presence felt, earning a spot on the team. Last year, the Texans had Chris Ogbonnaya shine in the pre-season, working his butt off last year to earn a spot with not only the Texans, but make heads turn throughout the league. In an article I wrote last year, you can see here, Ogbie, certainly not only impressed me, but he impressed the Cleveland Browns who signed him off the Texans’ practice squad last season.
This year, the Texans have had the outstanding talents of Trindon Holliday basically fall into their laps. In the pre-season match-up between the Texans and 49’ers, the small, yet speedy Holliday displayed his outstanding speed on the kickoff and punt returns, running one punt 86 yards to the house for six points for the Texans. This is not the first time he’s done so, in the first pre-season game against Carolina, Holliday ran a first quarter kick-off 90 yards for a touchdown for the Texans. Holliday certainly seems to have earned his spot on the team, and a starting spot as the return man, no less.
Holliday’s voyage to the NFL was not an easy one and nearly never happened, Holliday had a difficult time getting started in football. His mother held him out of football until 7th grade, because she was afraid he would get hurt. In high school, his coaches finally let him start as a running back during his junior year. In his senior year he accumulated over 2,000 yards and over 30 touchdowns, leading Northeast High to back-to-back State Semi-Final appearances. In light of his outstanding speed, and seemingly too good to be true quickness, his coach would added recorded times before sending off his resume. Despite his speed records, several schools, including Duke and Louisiana-Lafayette, rejected Holliday due to his small stature. LSU was originally not interested in Holliday, they were actually interested in his teammate, Aaron Brown. Brown was afraid of going alone so their coach, David Masterson brought Holliday along. er initial workouts, Holliday ran the 40 in 4.28 seconds wearing high top basketball shoes. The time was so outrageous that the LSU coaches began arguing if they had started their stopwatches on time. “They asked me if Trindon could run it again,” Masterson said. “He didn’t even get in a track stance. He ran the second 40 in 4.27. He’s one of those little freaks of nature. Despite this, LSU coach Les Miles still considered canceling Holliday’s scholarship offer until holdover offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher convinced Miles that Holliday could play at a college level.
In 2010, after his senior season at LSU, Holliday was drafted by the Texans in the 6th round, but it was not all joy and jubilation there, despite his speed Trindon struggled on kickoff returns in the preseason. He was placed on IR due to a fracture in his thumb. September 3, 2011 he was cut then placed on the practice squad. On October 5, his practice squad contract was terminated. He was later added to the active roster, but was waived again on October 25.
Fast forward one year later, we have another Arian Foster like story, a series of unlikely events mixed with talent and hard work have all stemmed to this. It is barely the second week of the pre-season, but Texans fans are giddy to know that we have a legitimate threat to run the football on kick returns, one could go out and say that he seems to be another Devin Hester type of returner.
– Richard Perez