Up to a point, Eric Krockett would think that his life was pretty uneventful, as normal as it could possibily be.  Or at least, normal for him.

 

Eric Krockett was born in a farming town in Kentucky.  He lived there with a single mother through most of his life.  He didn't know much of his biological father except that he vanished from the face of the earth without any explanation.  This happened when Eric was a newborn and thus too young to remember him.  He didn't sense any hostility from his mother about his lost father, but he assumed in his mind that his father either died tragically or dumped her, and since tried to play matchmaker on occasion, with limited success.

Regardless of her problems being a single mother running a ranch, Ms. Krockett made sure that Eric had a stable childhood in spite of being fatherless, and made sure that he was care for and raised to be an honest man.  And since she had a lot of hired help in the ranch, Eric had plenty of male role models in his life, including an Brazilian immigrant who was trained in Gracie Jiu Jitsu--directly from the Gracies, no less--and in turn taught him the martial art.  Even brought him on a trip back home where Eric met the Gracies himself.

By the time Eric graduated college with an agricultural degree, his aging mother insisted, Eric wished that he could take up the ranch from her Mother, get a girlfriend, and settle for a quiet life.

All that went south one day when Eric found himself in a racially charged incident.  While Eric pleaded for calm, someone pulled out a gun and shot his left arm off at the shoulder.  To add insult to injury, the defendant's lawyer dug into Eric's unknown father's side and discovered a shocking discovery:  Eric's Great Grandfather was involved in the Tuskegee Experiments, and fled to the back wooded parts of America when the backlash got too great.  This was used in the Defense, saying that the defender shot in "anti-white rage" and implementing Eric of "Generational Racism."

Nevermind that Eric never had a racial thought in his head, and considers himself on friendly teams with everyone who knows him, regardless of race.  Unfortunately, he never had to deal with smear merchants in the media.

The smearing grew into a media frenzy that not only drowned out his own plight, but was also responsible for the eventual fatal heart attack of his mother.  With no recourse in his mind outside of falling into the same hatred that threatened to destroy him, he fell into a catatonic state that remained until his transformation.