Colby grew up in the Midwest and is what an old friend on his would call a half-hick. Keep going south from Colby's home in Nebraska and you're sure to find the horse riders and boot wearers that keep the cowboy/hick tradition alive. And though there were and probably still are plenty of full blown tight jean wearing hicks in Nebraska Colby never went all the way with it. Though he and his neighbors are similar in many ways Colby doesn't subscribe to the same thought pattern of those like him. Coming from a city where people DID outnumber cows helped that out. He is, instead, a half-hick as the word was coined. Trading in his cowboy boots for heavy work boots and preferring the open air on his head rather then wearing a hat all the time. As well as having more then a healthy feeling that a farm is not the best way to go.

But all of that is more talk then anything else. A cowboy 'hick, goat roper, or whatever name you want to give them' are not bad people. Except maybe one, Colby's father Robert.

Robert Elliot was married four times and had nearly a dozen kids spread across the city of Lincoln. He was, simply put, an asshole. He was a man whose drive was pressed to all those around him rather then himself and while all those around him dealt with this, Colby took a heavy brunt of it. Colby was constantly pushed to be the best as his father saw it. And that was physical.

Colby left the physical force of his life behind him after he joined Starfleet, however, it was not such a little part of his life as it is now. Colby wasn't athletic, in good shape or even a casual player, Colby was a Jock. So much of a jock that he attended college on scholarships for two sports. He played the sports and played them very well, so well in fact that he was offered a spot to play baseball professionally but before that happened Colby's life changed.

Robert Elliot died and Colby found himself free and lost. Though he had always hated him father like anyone who lives one way their entire life Colby soon found that he was lost in the idea that the life he found himself in was no the one he wanted for himself.
With the death of his father Colby realized that he was living his father's life and not his own.

Colby turned down the offers to play sports for a living and entered Starfleet Academy. Still trailed by his past he was immediately offered classes in both Security and Tactical but he turned them down.

Instead he entered into operations, concerning himself with the workings of a starship. As much of his early life was handed on a football shaped platter really working was a hard thing to do but Colby was determined to be something more then a Jock and though he didn't make the honor roll he graduated the Academy in good form and was placed on one of Starfleet new Sovereign class starships.

Colby spend only one year on the USS Yamato, his first nine months on the Sovereign class ship and the last three months on the Telnorp ship. In the end it wasn't the mission that wore on him it was the environment. Surrounded by foreign technology that he didn't understand Colby felt like he was no help to the mission and those around him. In the early months of 2380 he put in a transfer to the USS Galaxy A to work with their operations team.

Colby still has a few of his jockish qualities, they have been part of his life for so long that he can't really cast them aside, they have become habit. They are not, however, the things that define him as they used to be. Colby has become more then the stereotypical dumb jock. He is more open about himself and his feelings and he is more comfortable with people.

Unlike his early life he no longer feels the need to prove himself to anyone, he lives for himself and that's all he needs.