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.

