NFL draft prospect Javon Kinlaw details the hardships he and his family faced growing up and how they helped shape him into the man he is today. (1:43)

PHOENIX -- Javon Kinlaw has childhood memories -- gunshots, dead bodies, needles, addicts -- he doesn't want to think about. He doesn't block them out. He just doesn't want to talk about them. They give Kinlaw bad dreams. They wake him up in a cold sweat. It's what he calls his trauma. And he doesn't want to go down that road.

"I'm not comfortable talking about a lot of stuff like that," Kinlaw said.

Kinlaw, a defensive tackle out of South Carolina projected by ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay to go in the first 20 picks of the NFL draft next month, is a long way from spending part of his childhood homeless in Washington, D.C. He's sitting in front of a basket of medium-hot wings -- his second -- and a basket of fries. He's plowing through both like he did offensive lines during his senior season with the Gamecocks. His 6-foot-5, 324-pound frame can hardly fit in the booth, but he doesn't want to make his life easier by moving to a table. It's no surprise; his life has never been easy.

It's mid-February and he's living in Arizona, preparing for the draft and looking for a place to fish. He trains in the morning and does things like go to the dentist in the afternoon. He was spending all his time preparing for his pro day on March 19, which was canceled as the coronavirus pandemic spread. Kinlaw, a first-team All-American as a senior, didn't work out at the NFL scouting combine back in February because of knee tendinitis, so his pro day was supposed to answer any final questions on a field.

More than likely he'll still be a first-round pick and sign a contract that will change his life, his daughter's life, his future grandchildren's lives and a couple more generations down the road.

"I know I'm gonna get some type of money," Kinlaw said. "The way I'm wired, I've been down, like down bad, down bad. Bad like where no one should be. Lived in basements. No matter what the money is, I'm going to be grateful. I can get me somewhere to live. Regardless of where I'm gonna be, I'm going [to] find me somewhere to live. So, I don't care what amount it is."

"We would light the stove with a little match or something, get a tall pot, boil the water, mix it with some cold water, put it in a bucket, take it upstairs, take a shower like that." Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports

Growing up homeless

Kinlaw wasn't always homeless. He lived in an apartment in the Washington, D.C., area with his mother and one of his older brothers, Shaquille, until he was 7 or 8 years old. When their landlord sold the building, they ended up at a house Kinlaw's grandfather sold to his mother's friend before moving back to Trinidad.

But the house soon started falling apart. The roof caved in.

They had to move again. He was 9 or 10.

He'd go without electricity or running water. He used his neighbor's hose to fill up totes of water to bring back to the house he was living in.

"We had gas, a gas stove," Kinlaw said. "We would light the stove with a little match or something, get a tall pot, boil the water, mix it with some cold water, put it in a bucket, take it upstairs, take a shower like that."

He got new clothes only at the start of the school year, and they'd have to last him. He'd rotate between one pair of jeans, a couple pairs of shorts, a hoodie and some shirts. But he always had a lot of socks.

Kinlaw lived in basements and with friends. He didn't complain to his mother, who moved to the United States from Trinidad in 1995, that he didn't have new shoes or wished his life was better. He didn't ask for more food or a jacket, because he knew the answer.

"I really don't think it was still that bad even though we went through a lot," Kinlaw said. "Because, to me, that's what it was. I didn't care about that stuff. I still don't. I mean, we were so used to living like that. I mean, if I was living like that now, it still wouldn't really bother me because I already know what it feels like. Even though it was like that, we had a lot of good days. It wasn't really ... I mean, it was bad.

"For the next person, you can probably say it was probably horrible. But for me I don't think it was that bad."

But he began to develop some bad habits and got into trouble. He'd ride the Metro with his brother around D.C. to skip school, hopping over the turnstile if he didn't have enough money for a ticket. Sometimes they rode it just to stay warm. If he went to school and wasn't being the "class clown," he'd go the bathroom for a half hour at a time to avoid being in class.

Something needed to change.

Javon Kinlaw wasn't sure what to make of his scholarship offer from South Carolina. "I was like, 'What do you want to offer me?'" Kinlaw remembered. "Because I didn't know what he was talking about." Butch Dill/AP Photo

Finding football

In the middle of ninth grade, Kinlaw moved to South Carolina to live with his dad, George. It was supposed to be a way to escape the streets of Northeast Washington, D.C. Instead, Kinlaw found himself in another dire situation. His coaches at Goose Creek High School in South Carolina said they remember hearing Kinlaw's father was an alcoholic and got physical with him at times, that his live-in girlfriend didn't want Javon around.

He ended up living with a teammate during his senior year.

At school, Kinlaw was bullied by older kids because of his size (280 pounds), his clothes and his shoes. Teachers doubted him.

"So many people used to tell me, like, 'You ain't gonna do nothing. You might be in jail. You probably gonna be dead, you're not going to graduate college,'" Kinlaw said.

Kinlaw wanted to play Pop Warner as a kid but his mom couldn't afford it. His football career began as a sophomore at Goose Creek because it was something to do, a way for him to eat up time without getting in trouble.

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Chuck Reedy, the head coach at Goose Creek during Kinlaw's sophomore and junior seasons, didn't sugarcoat Kinlaw's ability when he joined the team: He wasn't good.

But Kinlaw's size attracted college attention, including from former South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. When Spurrier's son, Steve Spurrier, Jr., offered a scholarship, Kinlaw wasn't even sure what he meant.

"I was like, 'What do you want to offer me?'" Kinlaw remembered. "Because I didn't know what he was talking about. I'm thinking like he's talking about ... I don't know what he was talking about offering me, but I didn't know it was gonna be like a football scholarship."

Still, Kinlaw was struggling away from the field, according to Chris Candor, the Goose Creek head coach during Kinlaw's senior season. Candor said teachers, assistant coaches and an equipment manager came to him asking for Kinlaw to be kicked off the team because of grades, effort or run-ins. Candor refused. Football was the only thing Kinlaw had, he'd explain.

"Coming where I come from, you can't trust nobody," Kinlaw said. "You end up trusting the wrong person, you end up dead. Of course, I just was always being defensive all the time. That's just what I come from. That was natural for me always being defensive."

That, and moving around as much as he did, made it hard for him to make friends. He tried to count all the schools he went to: four elementary schools, two middle schools and three high school. It reached the point that he stopped trying to make friends.

With offers from Alabama, USC, Louisville, Maryland, Clemson, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida, Kinlaw dropped out of Goose Creek halfway through his senior year.