Caylin Moore has opened up about his past, and according to his story, the TCU safety and Rhodes Scholar has been through thick and thin. When sharing his story to kids at Wyatt High School in Fort Worth, Texas, the football player narrates how statically his background would make some question how he accomplished so much in just 22 years.

Moore’s father is a convicted murderer, his mother was raped and when you’re a young black man growing up in Compton the odds are stacked against you. But Moore didn’t make excuses he made great things happen. His mother always told him that just because you live in the hood that doesn’t mean the hood has to live in you.

The inspirational speaker believes that he rose from the struggles through striving to push forward when he met challenges. He participated in Snoop Dogg’s youth league and went to Verbum Dei High School where he struck an excellent balance between football and education. He also attended Marist College, and won a Fulbright Scholarship while in the institution. Now the 22-year old TCU football player and scholar has been awarded the 2017 Rhodes scholarship which gives him a chance to study at Oxford University in England. At TCU, he’s a custodian and majors in economics, minors in math and sociology, and has a GPA of 3.934 so Oxford will be a walk in the park.