Qwan’tez Stiggers had been in college only a few days when his world fell apart. His father died, seven months after a car crash that put him in a coma. Stiggers, a freshman on scholarship at Lane College, dropped out and went home to Atlanta to help his mother, Kwanna, support the family: 12 brothers and sisters in all.
He thought football was over. Today he is a cornerback for the New York Jets, a path The Guardian traced in a profile published Wednesday.
The NFL’s usual pipeline runs through college programs. Stiggers, who grew up in Atlanta and attended The B.E.S.T. Academy, never played for one. His mother signed him up for Fan Controlled Football in 2022, a league where fans vote on plays. A former Toronto Argonauts coach then pointed him toward the Canadian Football League, and the Argonauts signed him on Jan. 4, 2023.
He became a starter in his first CFL season and was named the league’s Most Outstanding Rookie, with five interceptions in 16 games. The Jets took him with the 176th pick of the 2024 draft, in the fifth round. He was the first player drafted straight from the CFL since Jermaine Haley in 1999, and TSN reported he was the first CFL player drafted by an NFL team with no college playing experience.
Stiggers said on draft weekend that he loved being picked by New York. “I might not have gone the round I wanted to go in, but at the end of the day, I love that the Jets selected me,” he said. Of what carried him, he said: “It’s just believing in those who believe in you.”
Stiggers is in his third season with the Jets.
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