Two worlds colliding for sophomore
Katie Rose Higgins, a sophomore on the USC women's golf team, looks the part as she takes a seat in a room just off the entrance to the playing field at Williams-Brice Stadium earlier this week. She wears a garnet T-shirt, "South Carolina" boldly written across the front in black letters.
However, when Higgins returns to the stadium Saturday and actually walks on the field, the color of her shirt will change to blue.
Citadel blue.
Such is life when your father is a head football coach whose team is going to play your school. Higgins is a Gamecock through and through, but blood is thicker than water. When her father Kevin Higgins leads The Citadel against No. 14 USC on Saturday, she'll be a Bulldog, standing right by him on the sidelines.
"All the students here at USC are ready to get a big 'W,'" said Katie Rose, "and I know they're playing my dad's team, so it's going to be funny."
Family experiences
A day like Saturday isn't unprecedented for the Higgins family. Since Kevin Higgins was named The Citadel's head coach in 2005, Katie Rose's older siblings, Meaghan and Tim, have had experiences similar to what she will go through.
Tim Higgins was a walk-on at Florida before graduating and transferring to The Citadel to play for his father for a season as a graduate student. After his playing days were over, he accompanied his father to The Citadel's game against the Gators in Gainesville in 2008, watching both of his alma maters play.
Meaghan Higgins was a student at Clemson in 2008 when the Bulldogs played in Death Valley. She spent the game standing right by her dad, holding the cords to his headset. Katie Rose Higgins said she may do the same Saturday, and that if she does her sister has given her advice about how to handle the situation.
"You don't want to get screamed at in the heat of battle, moving around," Katie Rose said.
That shouldn't be a problem, though. While she has only been able to attend two Citadel games this season — balancing the golf team's schedule, The Citadel's schedule, USC football's schedule and opportunities to return home to Charleston is difficult — the atmosphere on the sideline will be nothing new. She is a frequent visitor at Citadel practices in the summer and goes on recruiting trips with her father. Her familiarity with the time and energy her father gives to his program makes it easy for her to pull for his side on Saturday.
"It's not even a question for me because I see how hard my dad works and how much he's invested into his players," she said.
Katie Rose Higgins understands how important it is for a coach to win as many games as he can. Being the daughter of a college coach is "extremely tough," she said. "First of all, you're moving around a lot."
Born in Pennsylvania, she left the Keystone State in 2001 when Kevin Higgins left Lehigh after 13 seasons — the last seven as head coach — for a four-year stint as a Detroit Lions assistant coach — first as a quarterbacks coach then later as a receivers coach — before taking the job at The Citadel. Those long, losing seasons in the Motor City taught her a great deal about the pressure involved in the coaching profession.
"You know how many hours football coaches put in to their job," she said. "And then to see it — just games lost and people always criticizing them. And at the bigger level, I have friends [who] get a 'For Sale' sign put in their yard after they lose a game. It's just really, really tough."
It's not as bad at smaller schools such as The Citadel, she said, and being away at USC makes handling whatever losses her dad's team may suffer a bit easier.
"When you're at home or anything like that, you see the newspapers the next day," she said.
"Your teachers are making jokes about the team the next day if they lose. Even in our classes here, we always joke about the Gamecocks either way. But if it's your dad on the other side ... "
Learning from it all
The tough losses and moments over the years have served as lessons, Katie Rose said. Not so much the on field results, but the way her father, and also her mother Kay, a former basketball coach, handle them. These lessons have helped her as a golfer.
"Both parents completely understand sports," she said. "The biggest thing they're helpful with is when I face adversity. Just getting through that because it's always going to come at you."
Since arriving at The Citadel, Kevin Higgins is 31-46. The Bulldogs are 4-6 this season, and have lost four games by seven points or less. But through it all, his daughter said, he doesn't change.
"He prepares all week for a game, and win or lose, you've got to get up the next day and start getting ready for the next one," she said. "He's just the best at being optimistic and letting go of the past and trying to find the best in everything."
Kevin Higgins also has a sense of humor about his team's chances as it heads in its game against a bigger, stronger, faster USC squad.
Former Air Force head coach Fisher DeBerry, a Cheraw native and Wofford graduate, held a charity event for his foundation at a Columbia hotel in July. In attendance were the head football coaches from the state's biggest collegiate programs, including Higgins and USC coach Steve Spurrier. Katie Rose Higgins attended the event with her father.
At one point during the night, Kevin Higgins was talking with Spurrier, whose love of golf is well-documented, when he made a playful suggestion:
Forget the game. Instead, Katie Rose Higgins and Spurrier should play 18 holes of match play. Whoever wins claims the victory for the school they represent.
Spurrier didn't go with the idea, but he did laugh a bit, Katie Rose said.
Facing long odds
You can't blame Kevin Higgins for trying, though. His daughter probably has a better chance of beating Spurrier on the golf course than his team has of beating USC.
Katie Rose Higgins wants the Bulldogs to win. But she's also realistic. Since her father has been the coach at The Citadel, his teams have played Arizona, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and Wisconsin, losing by multiple touchdowns each time.
The game against the Gators in 2008, the year that UF won the national championship, sticks out in her mind. When she saw then-Florida quarterback Tim Tebow run onto the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, she said she was overcome with emotions.
"I literally started to cry, just because I knew he was so much bigger than every other player on our team," she said.
Florida went on to win that game, 70-19. While the final score Saturday might not be as lopsided, chances are the Gamecocks will post a dominating victory. Katie Rose understands this, but that doesn't mean she isn't going to support her father and his team. She points to the 2007 date at Wisconsin — the Bulldogs were tied at 21 with the Badgers going into halftime — as proof anything could happen.
"There's hope," she said. "There's a reason why you play the game. You don't know what the outcome's going to be."
The fact the Bulldogs get to play the Gamecocks late in the season is something Katie Rose said her father feels could benefit his team.
"It's positioned so USC is playing Clemson next week, so it's not like they're going to be up for this game in particular," she said. "My dad sees it as [the Bulldogs are] already over; they've played all their important games so if they get any big injuries or anything, it's the end of the season anyways. So the timing's pretty good."
Another source of hope is the scare Navy gave USC earlier this fall. The Bulldogs run the same triple option offense the Midshipmen employ.
"Just like the Navy game would be nice," she said. "But we'll see."
Katie Rose wasn't able to attend the Navy game due to a golf outing. Nor was she at USC's game against Furman last season, which also plays into Saturday's contest. Like when the Paladins came to town, The Citadel arrives having won the last meeting between the two teams. The Bulldogs beat USC 38-35 in 1990.
"But that was a long time ago," Katie Rose said. "USC was obviously a different program then."
Kevin Higgins said as much during his press conference earlier this week. Katie Rose Higgins said he has heard about the 1990 game more than he has talked to his players about it, agreeing with her that it is a different era. He said he's told his players, but that won't be their focus.
Spurrier said 1990 is a bit closer than he thought the game was — he mistakenly thought the game was played in 1980 — and that he has told his team as well.
"I mentioned that to our team that it is a very big deal if an in-state school beats the state university anywhere," he said. "We'll be ready to play these guys."
Breaking it down
Katie Rose said her teammates have been very supportive of the dilemma she's about to deal with.
"They know how much I get into my dad's team and stuff, so they're not going to put any pressure on it or tease me about it," she said. "But we have recruits coming in [this] weekend, so that's going to be a little hard too."
Her responsibilities with the visiting recruits as well as her father's strict schedule means there probably won't be a great deal of down time for the family, Katie Rose said. But she will be with him on the sideline, and will attend the team's Saturday morning chapel, which will be led by Jack Easterby, the director of USC's Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter.
Katie Rose also said her friends on the USC football team have been OK with the situation, even having some fun with it when she told them before the season.
"They all just kind of rolled their eyes at me," she said. "Like, 'Oh please, Citadel.'"
A perfect day for Katie Rose would end with the Bulldogs pulling off a shocking upset. But in the event that doesn't happen, what's the next best scenario?
"Keep it close until halftime, third quarter," she said. "Just make some big plays and hope, maybe a kickoff return for a touchdown. When you get a small school like that, that's how you end up winning. Turnovers or a kickoff return for a touchdown, just because you're mismatched at every position."
No matter what happens, Katie Rose said she would be proud of her father and of both teams. Being a student-athlete, she said she understands how tough competing and going to school at the same time can be. She has joined many USC football players at early morning workouts and seen firsthand how challenging life is for the "unique kids" that choose to attend The Citadel and play for her father. Her hope is the Bulldogs can make some plays, hang in the game for a few quarters and end their season on a high note, but she knows that might be too tall a task.
"Obviously USC's defense is so good. It's just going to be really hard for The Citadel to move the ball," she said. "I just think it's going to be tough with (Jadeveon) Clowney and the boys up front, running the triple option, but we'll see."
Whatever she does see, Katie Rose said there's "no doubt" about one thing. Come Sunday, the color of her shirt will change again.
It'll be back to garnet. She is a Gamecock, after all.