Biography

Sonny Shroyer was born in Valdosta, Georgia, a small city on the Georgia-Florida border. Shroyer, whose given name is Otis Burt Shroyer Jr. , grew up steeped in the traditions of the deep South. He worked in the tobacco warehouses pushing tobacco buggies and helped his father in their fruit stand-ice cream parlor business. His prowess in high school football landed him a football scholarship at Florida State University (he later ended up playing football in the movie The Longest Yard (1974) with another FSU football player, Burt Reynolds).