The youngest of four children and the only boy in the family, Christian Roland-Wallace admits he may have been a little spoiled growing up. Just maybe not the way you'd think.
 
"I was spoiled in a way," Arizona's sophomore cornerback said. "With love."
 
The son of Trina Roland, Christian grew up in Palmdale, California with really one simple goal in mind.
 
"I wanted to make my mom proud," Roland-Wallace said. "I wanted to take some stress off of her. She's a loving, caring person. That's someone that I always looked up to and learned a lot from. She's a very strong woman."
 
Nestled in north Los Angeles County and separated from Los Angeles by the San Gabriel Mountains, Palmdale is a quiet town with not much to do. So as he grew up, Roland-Wallace got into this and got into that, before discovering football.
 
He began falling in love with the game by just watching it on television. He began watching games, admiring the athleticism and physicality of the players and declared, "this is what I want to do."
 
Roland-Wallace immediately got involved with the game, joining the Pete Knight Youth Football program in Palmdale. The first position he ever played was defensive end, before eventually shifting to running back and then defensive back.
 
Thanks to his natural ability and smarts, Roland-Wallace emerged as a serious threat on the football field. He starred as a high school player at William J. Knight High School in Palmdale, scoring 10 touchdowns as a receiver and picking off four passes as a junior in 2017.
 
As a senior in 2018, he helped Knight High School go 9-3, while catching 69 passes for 1,150 yards and 14 touchdowns and adding five interceptions on defense. Despite the on-field production, Roland-Wallace's recruitment started a little later than most. But by the end of his junior year, there was a lot of interest in the defensive back.
 
In early July, before his senior season, Roland-Wallace ended his recruitment and committed to Arizona. He stayed committed despite late interest from several high-profile programs.
 
"Arizona is where I wanted to be," Roland-Wallace said. "The energy, atmosphere and the environment there – everything was so authentic. When I went on my visit, I saw how everything was going to be for me and I felt it was a perfect opportunity. I committed my junior year, and I kept my word because that's where I wanted to be."
 
Roland-Wallace graduated high school a semester early and enrolled at Arizona in the spring of 2019. He arrived in Tucson early because he wanted to get ahead academically and wanted to do everything in his power to get on the field as early in his career as possible.
 
The plan paid off.
 
The cornerback played in all 12 games as a true freshman for the Wildcats, drawing eight starts. He finished the season with 37 tackles, five pass breakups and one interception. He more than held up in his first season of Pac-12 football and showed he can be a presence in the league for several years.
 
"The year was definitely a learning experience," Roland-Wallace said. "I wasn't satisfied. There was some good and bad. I showed I can handle myself, but I also showed that it was a learning process as well."
 
He's already begun applying some of those lessons on the field, and was working to improve during spring football before it was canceled. He's eager to get back on the field and embrace playing on Saturdays in the fall.
 
"On game day, I'm really quiet; I just get locked in and focused," Roland-Wallace said. "I like to get in my zone. When we get on the field, that's when all the energy comes out."