The Running Back and the Alligator
UCLA’s Carson Steele is the most interesting man in college football
At the bottom of every player’s bio in the UCLA press guide are a few brief lines about their lives off the football field. It’s banal stuff. Mindless.
Quarterback Ethan Garbers: “Son of Grant and Angelique Garbers ... has one brother, Chase, who played quarterback at Cal (2017-21)… hobbies include playing golf, going to the beach and hanging out with friends.”
Preseason all-Pac 12 defensive lineman Laiatu Latu: “Son of Kerry Latu … has a brother and two sisters ... sociology major at UCLA.”
Running back Carson Steele: “Son of Joseph and Angela Steele … has one sister ... owns a pet alligator ... majoring in sociology.”
Owns a…WAIT, WHAT?
Indeed. Carson Steele really does have a pet alligator. The running back has also earned the nicknames, “Thor,” “Fabio,” and “Man of Steele.” He bench presses 450 pounds, squats 685 pounds, and has clocked a top speed of 21 mph. He used to train by pushing a car through his neighborhood; when that got too easy, he found an SUV at his father’s used car lot and used that instead.
He might just be the most interesting man in college football.
“It suits me well having an alligator,” Carson once said. “Since I was young, people are like, ‘It doesn't surprise me that you're the one who has an alligator.’”
It came on Christmas Eve, about 10 years ago. The whole Steele family was celebrating together at Grandma’s house in Indiana when the door rang. It was the UPS man, and he held a box punctured with holes and with “WARNING: LIVE ANIMAL” written on the outside. Carson had asked for a lizard for Christmas, and as he tore open the box and found a burlap sack with something squirming inside, that’s what he assumed he was holding. Grandma and Mom didn’t know what it was, either. When Carson held up a tiny, six-inch long baby alligator, they squealed. Dad had found a gator farm in Florida that bred “dwarf alligators” and shipped them anywhere in the country. He was doubled over in the corner laughing, the only one in on the joke, and then the animal squirmed out of Carson’s hand and started to dart around the living room, causing the type of Christmas havoc that lives on in family lore forever.
“It was all Santa Claus’ fault,” Steele’s mother later told a reporter
Carson named him “Crocky J” and kept him in a tank in his room. He has grown to be about 4-5 feet long and weighs 80-90 pounds. Every now and then, the Steeles take Crocky J out of his tank to wash him off in the shower (“Sometimes he’ll get algae on his back, so he loves it. He’ll just sit there,” says Carson’s father Joseph). Only once has he bit Carson—and yes, he drew blood.
“A lot of people are really fascinated by it,” Joseph Steele told the Los Angeles Times. “You'll get up next to the tank and it'll hiss and stuff, so it kind of freaks people out.”
With…yep, the ferocity of an alligator, Carson became the one of the top high school running backs in Indiana. But despite winning the state’s player of the year award, he only received one Division 1 scholarship offer. That’s how Carson wound up at Ball State, where he played for the past two seasons and racked up 1,556 yards last year, drawing the attention of UCLA in the transfer portal.
So far, Carson has fit in just fine in Southern California, and he’ll help lead the Bruins this week in a big game in the Rose Bowl against unbeaten No. 13 Washington State. Crocky J has had to watch back from Carson’s childhood bedroom. When asked if he brought his beloved pet to his dorm room, Carson told a reporter “Man, I wanted to so badly. But with the rules and stuff, I don’t think you can have those kinds of animals here. Indiana? It’s a little different.”
"Glad he made the decision to leave him back in Indiana," deadpanned UCLA coach Chip Kelly.
Yet fear not. Because one day, when football is over, Crocky J will still be there for his owner. “He’s supposed to live for 60 to 70 years,” Carson said. “I’ll have him my whole life.”
Ain’t that a Christmas miracle?
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