Treydan Stukes couldn’t help but read the words in his dad’s voice.
It was the same affirmations and lessons the Las Vegas Raiders second-round draft pick had been hearing in his home his entire life.
This time, they were printed in a book.
“The Self-Centered Perspective: Using Self-Mastery, The Power of Introspection, and Choice to Balance Life’s Ups and Downs,” is the title of the 2024 work produced by Treydan’s father, Ray Stukes Jr.
The book synopsis says it “will help you achieve a higher quality of life by arming you with the understanding, confidence, positivity, and fulfillment you may not have thought possible in your life.”
But the lasting lesson the rookie defensive back took from it is one that has been ingrained in him since he was a child and one he carries with him on the field.
H.E.A.R.T.
“It’s Humility, Efficacy, Accountability, Resilience and Trustworthiness,” Stukes said after a rookie minicamp practice Saturday. “I wear it on my wrist every day, just to remind myself, those are the values I want to show and prove to myself every single day in life and in football. So, yeah, I think that’s the main thing, that’s the main takeaway from that one, for sure.”
He has done a great job of it thus far.
While his physical talents greatly improved over six years of building size and strength at Arizona, it’s difficult to find a scouting report on Stukes that doesn’t lead with character, intelligence and leadership.
He arrived in Tucson as a walk-on who was a 4.0 student in high school and a zero-star recruit who weighed 150 pounds and had no legitimate offers.
Stukes was welcomed into the program only because his father’s former college position coach Paul Rhoads was the defensive coordinator and cracked the door open by sharing high school tape with the rest of the coaching staff.
But his heart, or H.E.A.R.T., became immediately evident. Stukes was on scholarship the next season and named captain three times under two coaching staffs.
He starred on the field and off, even opting to stay loyal to Arizona when other offers arose and his program appeared to be in turmoil.
His character shines through every time he speaks. And he just so happens to be really good at football.
Stukes is a versatile defensive back who will serve a variety of roles in Rob Leonard’s defense. But he’s not about to stop growing as a person or a player just because he completed an unlikely journey to the NFL.
“I think building a great team starts with being a great teammate first, and that’s something I learned the importance of throughout my entire football career, honestly,” he said. “And coming in as a rookie, you want to be confident, you want to be ready to learn, but you want to learn from the vets.
“You want to learn from the coaching staff. And that’s what I’m here to do. I’m going to steal knowledge from everyone I can. I’m going to copy the vets that have done it right and have been succeeding for years at this at this level.”
It’s the kind of mentality that allowed him to traverse a road paved in the adversity of being overlooked at every stop along the way.
“My path was never the most perfect path, or what you would draw out for yourself,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine yourself at the highest point watching the best of the best in the world when you’re in those times. But I just kept trusting the process, trusting the people I love, and trying to gain knowledge everywhere I was. And I just kept getting confident, more and more confident in my abilities as I kept getting older and wiser.
“And, I’m super happy to be here now.”
Those are lessons that go beyond what you can read in a book. Unless your dad wrote it.
“I read the book, obviously in his voice, and it had just taken me back to being in fourth grade, first year of tackle football,” Stukes said. “The things he’s telling me are the same things he’s writing down.
“So, it was definitely cool to read it in a book and realize that he’s been teaching me that stuff my entire life.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.
