When Sarasota, a town in
southwestern
Florida,
was
rated America’s meanest city
in 2006, Karan Higdon was
just a nine-year-old kid who
wore
size
nine-and-a-half
shoes. He was a big kid, no
doubt, who went to the Boys
and Girls Club most days after
school and sometimes met his
friends for kickball outside in
the neighborhood. He played
Pee Wee football for the Port
Charlotte Bandits, and even
back then he was running over
every tackler in his path.
Todd
Johnson,
though,
spent that year with the
Chicago Bears. Then in his late
20s, the professional defensive
back was in his fourth season
in
the
National
Football
League since getting drafted
out of the University of Florida.
After games,
Johnson
would
pick
up
leftover
football
gloves
and
shoes
from
the
Bears’
locker
room
to send back
to Sarasota’s
Riverview
High School,
his
alma
mater.
It
was
also
the
year Karan’s
mother,
Samantha
Christian,
decided the family should
move out of Newtown. On the
outskirts of Sarasota’s inner
city, Newtown was a tight-knit
community where everyone
knew everyone, but it was also
an area where you didn’t want
to make a wrong turn.
Higdon,
Johnson
and
Christian
are
just
three
characters in a bigger story of
how one boy from Florida did
what so many others couldn’t
— get out. Higdon’s story is
one of motivation, hard work
and commitment. It’s a story
about someone who made the
right choices when others
didn’t and stuck by them
against adversity. It’s a story
about a protagonist and a
supporting cast that never left
each other’s side.
This
story
begins
in
Sarasota.
***
Karan Higdon almost quit
football when he was five
years old. It was too hot, and
they had him running laps.
After one day of flag football
with the Sarasota Redskins,
the kindergartner decided it
was enough.
One of the other boys’
fathers was the team’s coach,
so that boy got to play running
back.
That’s
how
youth
football teams usually worked
— the coach’s son got to play
a position that always got the
ball, and if the coach had a
nephew as well, then that kid
might get a few runs.
The other kids, though,
were usually just thrown in
wherever. For Karan, that
position
was
center.
Eventually,
after
Karan’s
mother told him
to “suck it up”
and go play, one
of the coaches
noticed how fast
he could run.
So in the next
game,
Karan
played running
back,
they
handed
him
the ball and it
was all go from
there.
Karan
was
still young, but
realized
that
running out in the Florida
heat wasn’t so bad when he
had the ball in his hands. He
also realized that people were
invested in him, and nobody
more so than his mother.
Christian wanted to be
Karan’s biggest fan and be just
as involved in his life as her
parents were for her, especially
her
mother.
Christian’s
mother never skipped her
daughter’s sporting events,
award ceremonies or parent-
teacher
conferences.
She
made
sure
her
daughter
had whatever resources she
needed to succeed.
“To see my mother sitting
in the stands as I’m playing
basketball or see her in the
stands as I’m running the 100-
yard dash, it meant everything
to me,” Christian said. “I
didn’t care if nobody else was
there to support me. I wanted
my mother there.”
So when Christian became
a mother to three boys, she
approached parenthood the
very same way: staying as
involved as possible in her
kids’ upbringing.
Growing
up,
Christian
pushed Karan to be very
active. She described him
as bubbly, happy and always
smiling. When he wasn’t in
class, he was playing sports.
He’d meet up with other
friends in the neighborhood
to play touch football, because
that’s what most of the kids in
Sarasota would do.
Christian had also grown
up in Sarasota, though, and
she knew all too well how easy
it was for boys like Karan to
get
distracted.
Newtown’s
neighboring
areas
were
fairly
impoverished,
and
homelessness was a major
problem for the city.
On
certain
streets,
Christian always saw kids
getting caught up by older
guys. There were fights and
drugs, and Christian knew
how malleable a young boy
growing
up
there
would
be seeing people flaunting
around money with shiny
jewelry and the newest pairs
of shoes.
She
didn’t
want
Karan
seeing
police
officers
handcuffing
drug
dealers
or attending a school where
he’d hear about “so-and-so’s
parents getting busted” and
going to jail. She didn’t want
Karan to get the idea that
stealing or selling drugs was a
productive way to go through
life.
“I didn’t want Karan to
get
hypnotized
with
the
fascination of that illusion of
what a man is supposed to be,”
Christian said.
She’d grown up in the city
and seen it all herself.
So when Karan was nine,
Christian moved the family
out of the inner city to North
Port, a neighborhood much
further south of the county.
She wanted to make sure
that Karan didn’t become like
some of the people she had
seen in Newtown, because
as he moved up into middle
school,
she
was
starting
to realize how significant
football could really be for
him.
***
When Karan was playing
Pop Warner football at the
age of 12, his nickname was
“Nightmare.”
“This kid was literally a
nightmare on the football
field on offense and defense,”
Christian said about her son.
“He was just unbelievable.
He used to carry his team on
his shoulders. They would
run Karan so much, that I
was like, ‘Hey coach, don’t
you think you need to give
the ball to somebody else?
You’re running him so much!’
But Karan was able to carry
that load. He would average
at least four touchdowns a
game.”
Karan,
too,
started
to
realize how good he was.
“I was pretty big as a kid,
compared to other kids, so I
would just run through a lot of
people,” he said.
High school coaches started
paying
attention,
too.
It
became clear that wherever
Karan went for school, he
would go straight to varsity.
Riverview High School was
always the likely candidate
to land Karan. Christian had
gone to Riverview herself, and
FootballSaturday, November 4, 2017
4
Karan Higdon’s Sarasota success story
TED JANES
Daily Sports Writer
Michigan’s running back saw one way out of Florida. With the help of his mother, he took it and ran.
COURTESY OF SAMANTHA CHRISTIAN
Junior running back Karan Higdon poses with his mother, Samantha, after rushing for 200 yards and three touchdowns against Indiana this year.
I didn’t want
Karan to get
hypnotized
with the
fascination of
that illusion of
what a man is
supposed to be.