Najee Harris lived amid 'two blocks of hell.' He trained in the dark. He dodged trouble like he did defenders. And now, it's all daylight.

ANTIOCH, Calif. — Tianna Hicks called them “the two blocks of hell.” That’s what separated the family’s low-income, second-floor apartment and the place where her son, Najee Harris, was making a better life for himself on late nights in the summer of 2015

Drug dealers. Gang bangers. Lost souls given way to temptation. They were among the nocturnal crowd that gathered around the little plaza on the corner of Sycamore Drive and L Street, a neighborhood hive of criminal enterprise about 300 yards from Antioch High School, where Harris was the football team’s burgeoning star. 

“I was terrified at first because he’s walking at night to go up to the (school’s) football field to work out,” Tianna, a single mother of five kids, told DK Pittsburgh Sports. “The first week I was there, someone was killed on the side of our apartment building. I didn’t know if he got shot there, but when I woke up there was yellow police tape and a dead man’s body on the side of our apartment.” 

Renting a place in the most dangerous neighborhood in Antioch, a bedroom community 37 miles east of Oakland, was all Tianna could afford on her medical assistant’s salary. But it represented a modest bit of upward mobility for a family that had endured a string of evictions and spells of homelessness. Most importantly to her youngest child, it was within walking distance of the new football stadium, where Harris could improve his agility and conditioning using cones, bands and bungee cords at 10 p.m., a time of day when the withering heat had abated. 

Sometimes, Harris trained in the dark. Sometimes, football coach John Lucido turned on a bank of lights when he knew his gifted tailback was coming. 

“What a lot of people didn’t realize at the time was this was Najee's getaway from everything that was going on in his life,” personal trainer Marcus Malu said. “A lot of people find that escape in the bottle or in drugs, some kind of addiction to fill that void. For him, it was working out.” 

The only shortcut Harris, the Steelers’ first-round draft pick, took on his road to the NFL was ducking behind the Sycamore Square plaza to avoid contact with trouble and chaos. He trotted a well-worn course across railroad tracks, down a grassy embankment and onto an asphalt pathway that led him to safety and West 18th Street, where Eells Stadium awaited.

Last week during an introductory news conference in Pittsburgh, Harris shouted out all the coaches, teachers, school administrators, shelter workers, friends and family members scattered throughout Northern California who had helped him on his journey.

“It takes a village to raise a child, and I believe that is what happened,” Harris said. 

In leading Antioch High to gridiron glory and emerging as one of the nation’s top college recruits, Harris discovered some unlikely allies along the way. Neighborhood gang leaders began pulling him aside to promise him he would never be harmed in pursuit of his dream.

“There’s almost a too-good-to-be-true element to Najee’s story,” Malu said. “That’s usually a good-versus-evil story, right? What you had here was evil and good teaming up to make sure nothing bad happened to this kid. When Najee started to bring that light to Antioch, it put a lot of things on pause. A lot of people really enjoyed what was going on with him and that football team. The games were packed. It was a great time for Antioch. It didn’t matter if you were Black, White, Latino, Tongan, Samoan, you were rooting for the kid because he represented all of us in the struggle.” 

____________________

“Just drop me off here, this is good.”

That’s what Harris told Lucido when the coach started squiring him from football practices in September of 2013, a few days after the freshman had enrolled at Antioch High. At the time, Harris was living in a different part of town. 

It was common for the veteran coach to deliver a handful of his most at-risk kids to their homes, but Lucido’s suspicions were raised when Harris kept asking him to be left at a fast-food restaurant rather than a house or apartment. The coach knew almost nothing about his newest freshman other than he showed great promise and he hid his face behind his dreadlocks, often avoiding eye contact.

This is how Harris operated in the years before becoming the gregarious player that football fans recognize today. He would only let adults go so far with him. It was the defense mechanism of a private kid who had walled off the outside world to his family’s hardships.

“Finally, I said, ‘Najee, I can’t keep dropping you off here, I’m responsible for you,’” Lucido recalled. “That’s when he told me he and his family were staying at Motel 6.”

Five kids and two parents holed up in a single room, living day to day, never sure when the money would run out. 

Antioch High faculty members scrambled to find them a more suitable residence. Principal Louie Rocha learned the father, Curt Harris, who had been in and out of the family’s orbit for nearly 20 years, worked in construction. Through his connections with the county, Rocha got the dad a job on the crew building the new football stadium. 

Curt never showed. Instead, he went back to his native Seattle, leaving Hicks and the kids to fend for themselves. 

Over time, teachers and coaches stitched together strands of the fractured family history: the neglect and abuse suffered by Tianna at the hands of Curt, who had briefly played football at Grambling University before reportedly chasing fast money in the streets and taking the kind of shortcuts his youngest son detested.

Rocha didn’t know any of this when Harris walked into the principal’s office for the first time. He had no idea about the nights spent in vans when Tianna couldn’t find anywhere else to shelter her kids. He had no clue this tall, skinny freshman would soon have Nick Saban, Jim Harbaugh, Brian Kelly and other major-college coaches visiting the school with scholarship offers at the ready. Rocha just saw a youngster in need of support. 

The principal possesses an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Antioch (population: 111,200). His family relocated here in 1968 when it was still a rural community, and its only industries were paper mills, steel mills and refineries scattered along the banks of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Rocha watched it grow into the second largest city in Contra Costa County, where the golden-brown rolling foothills look ripped from the opening credits of M*A*S*H. 

As Antioch swelled with commuters searching for relief from soaring Bay Area housing prices, it began to face the same challenges of many urban areas. In 2007, Rocha had a 10-foot-high chain-link fence built around the campus after a student was beaten by an adult in an adjacent neighborhood. None of the 2,100 students are permitted to leave the school unaccompanied for lunch.

Tuesday, the principal gave a visitor a guided tour of the city, which recently gained a stop on the Bay Area Rapid Transit line and has adopted the motto: Opportunity Lives Here. He also drove around the Sycamore apartments and plaza, where cops cars were frequently spotted circling the blocks.

“It can be an intimidating place, especially after dark,” the principal said  

Rocha took an immediate liking to Harris, who expressed an interest in playing football. The principal figured the freshman team was a good place to start. 

Harris’ career with his fellow ninth-graders lasted about 15 seconds. 

“We are down at the track and walking back to the locker room and here comes Najee,” Antioch varsity offensive coordinator Brett Dudley recalled. “Our freshmen coach takes one look at him and says, ‘no way, he’s going up to jayvee.’ It was equal parts ‘Najee is gonna kill one of my freshmen’ and ‘don’t even get my hopes up because he’s going to rush for 200 yards in the first game and you guys are going to pull him up anyway.’”

On the afternoon of Harris’ JV debut, Rocha and the varsity coaches arrived at halftime and were surprised to see him sitting on the bench, helmet removed.

“I walked over to our JV coach and said, ‘Nick, I came down to see the new kid play,” the principal said. “The coach looks at me says, ‘Mr. Rocha, the score is 28-0. Najee got the ball four times and he scored all four times.’”

____________________

GETTY

Najee Harris and his mother Tianna Hicks.

It didn’t take Antioch football fans long to fall in love with their swift and powerful running back, who would finish his career with 7,984 yards rushing. Harris helped the Panthers reach the playoffs for the first time in years as a sophomore despite the fact the team didn’t play a single home game because of stadium renovations. 

He could run around and over opposition, but what really thrilled his growing legion of followers was his penchant for hurdling defenders. 

“It’s pretty when you see it,” Tianna said laughing. “If it wasn’t my son, I’d be like ‘dang.’ But oh my God, if this boy gets caught in the air, he’s going to helicopter spin across the field and I’m going to be running down there. Then, you’ll see where the real hurdler in the family comes from.”

Harris wasn’t the first in the family to dream big. His mother had Olympic aspirations as a long-legged teenage track-and-field standout in Oakland. She was a decorated high jumper, long jumper and triple jumper, who also ran the anchor leg on her prep team’s mile relay. 

But academic failings held her back from graduating by age 18, and Tianna’s life soon swerved left of center. She met Curt Harris and the couple produced five kids in a six-year span. Malachi. Jahmila. Curtis III. Fela. Najee.

Relations became strained and money tight. The family lived a nomadic existence all over Northern California and Seattle. Tianna recalled spending several Christmas holidays in homeless shelters. Even as the father repeatedly abandoned the family, the mother kept the children together.

“Tianna is quiet strong, just like Najee,” Malu said. “She is a day-to-day warrior, a rock for those kids.”

Occasionally, finances were so bleak and options so limited that Tianna and the kids spent nights in their vehicle. Mom usually could persuade the older children to stay with friends, but not her youngest.

“Najee wouldn’t do it,” Tianna said. “I thought I was offering him the best thing — go spend a night at a friend’s house and play video games — but he was like, ‘if my mom is sleeping in a car, I’m sleeping in a car.’ When Najee says he’s from ‘everywhere,’ he’s not lying because we were.” 

Although Tianna didn’t enjoy her time in Seattle, she got her family much-needed transitional support. She also served as a role model for the importance of continuing education, no matter what the age. Tianna returned to the classroom, earning her GED and medical assistant training certificate. 

“We were all going to school at the same time — me and my kids,”she said. 

Tianna found work with Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest employers in Antioch. By then, the child she had nicknamed “Little Buddy” had long outgrown anger issues that saw him annoying teachers, destroying kindergarten classrooms and picking fights with other kids. 

Football provided Harris with an outlet to channel his aggressions and Tianna with the carrot to dangle any time his grades or comportment slipped.  

“We never had a behavioral issues with him,” Lucido said. “We just had trouble getting him to say a sentence. He didn’t like to talk his first few years in high school.”

That was about to change.

____________________

Coaches began hiding Harris’ helmet and shoulder pads during his junior season. It wasn’t meant as a means of punishment, but of preservation.

Harris rushed for 2,744 yards and 36 touchdowns in guiding the Panthers to an undefeated regular season. He also was a two-point conversion phenom, deployed as a Wildcat formation quarterback. (Mike Tomlin and Matt Canada might want to squirrel away that nugget.)

That was hardly the extent of Harris’ workload, however. He trained with Malu before and after practices. Malu tells stories of how instructor and pupil would sneak into an abandoned gym for 4 a.m. sessions before he opened his own fitness center. 

The coaches appreciated Harris’ sculpted physique and his relentless desire to train, but they begged him to take the occasional day off from practice. 

“Najee doesn’t think he’s that good,” said Lucido, whose school has produced 10 NFL players, including Hall-of-Famer Gino Marchetti. “He’ll tell you, ‘I’m an OK running back.’ On the day he was drafted last week, Najee was down at Malu’s gym early in the morning not wanting to skip a workout. The day of the draft!

“We would take his equipment out of his locker to keep him off the practice field some times. He’d find somebody else’s helmet and shoulder pads and come out to practice anyway.”

The Antioch coaches, former coach Mori Suesue and Malu tried to assist Harris in his development in a variety of ways. They took him out to eat. They drove him to the supermarket and loaded up the cart to make sure his family had enough food in the apartment. They taught him how to make proper eye contact and interact with college coaches early in the recruiting process. 

Harris was so humble, coaches said, he wouldn’t grant post-game interviews unless his offensive linemen were included. When the Panthers played their big rival — and we’re not making this up, the Pittsburg High Pirates, for the 100th time in 2016 — a national recruiting website offered to have Harris arrive at the game by helicopter, Rocha said. The running back declined.

Many wanted face time with Harris and some were willing to do almost anything to get it. Harbaugh, who remains a beloved figure here for leading the Niners to a Super Bowl, already had made his official NCAA visit on behalf of the Wolverines and couldn’t speak directly with Harris. It didn’t prevent him from standing on the Antioch sideline and raising both arms every time the tailback returned to the bench after scoring a touchdown. At halftime, the Michigan coach agreed to announce the 2016 homecoming king and queen. 

Although the recruiting world erupted with every 200-yard rushing performance and Todd Gurley-like hurdle of another defender, few knew the struggles of the prized recruit. His Sycamore Drive apartment didn’t have air conditioning. When Harris began to complain of back and hip soreness, coaches and trainers were mystified about the root cause.

It was only after Lucido took him for acupuncture treatment and deep-tissue massage therapy that Harris volunteered a possible reason for the pain. He had been sleeping on the floor of the apartment so his sister could rest comfortably on a sofa. 

“(Adversity) helped shape me a lot of ways,” Harris said last week. “ . . . I have been through a lot of stuff in my life that was difficult and I had to overcome a lot of obstacles, but it was for the better. It really helped me in football because in football you are going to go through a lot of adversity. Being able to overcome it shows you how much strength you have.”

____________________

Math teacher Brandy Thompson was mulling a career change in the summer of 2015. Thirteen years into the profession, she was starting to feel overwhelmed. Thompson also didn’t think she was making an impact in the lives of her students. 

It’s around this time the football coaches asked her to tutor some players — with a special emphasis on one in particular. Tianna had bags of recruiting letters taking up space in the apartment, but unless her son got a better handle on Algebra, he wasn’t going to qualify academically for major universities. The task became such a priority that coaches moved their practices to the evenings so Thompson and Harris could meet after school.  

The teacher was unaware of her student’s athletic prowess. She had never seen him play. It didn’t take long, however, for Thompson to gain an appreciation for his celebrity status. 

“His phone was constantly going off,” she recalled. “It was reporters wanting interviews. He was also being paged on the intercom. College coaches wanting to meet with him. But he stayed focused on our work. I’ve never had a student that put in more time.”

Tutoring Harris reminded her of why she had become a teacher. His disarming personality also won over another member of her family. Thompson is a single-parent mom of a young daughter facing a few challenges of her own. Harris became like a big brother to the girl, who suddenly was besties with the most popular student in the district. 

"Najee became almost like family to us,” Thompson said. 

Harris passed Algebra II and satisfied his college academic requirements. Still, the football star asked one more favor of his tutor. On Senior Night, Antioch football players walk onto the field accompanied by family and a faculty member of their choosing. 

“i’m getting choked up talking about this,” Thompson said. “I’m extremely happy for Najee and all he’s accomplished.”

Last summer, she returned to her native Hawaii with daughter in tow. Life couldn’t be any better on the islands and, yeah, Thomson is still a teacher. 

____________________

DKPS

A banner showing all the Antioch High alums who have played in the NFL.

After winning a second national title, locking up most of Alabama’s major rushing records and graduating early with a degree in Consumer Services, Harris had one bit of unfinished business. 

His mother and sister had moved to Alabama in 2017 to help him adjust to life in the South. Tianna worked in a plastic surgeon’s office in Birmingham and her hearing-impaired daughter earned a medical assistant’s degree at a junior college. 

In February, Harris asked his mother where she would like to live. Tianna wanted to come home to the Bay Area to care for her first grandchild, but told Harris she needed more time to get her financial affairs in order. 

Her "Little Buddy" — the one now armed with a Nike endorsement deal and a Fanatics merchandise contract — just smiled. Harris got her a fully furnished apartment overlooking a park outside of Sacramento.

“I can remember waking up one morning thanking God for not having to worry about how the rent was going to get paid,” Tianna said.

Her catalog of proud moments wouldn’t fit in one of those bags containing all of her son’s recruiting letters. Among the most touching came last season when Harris began celebrating touchdowns by striking the iconic World Cup pose of Megan Rapinoe. The soccer star and future first-round pick struck up a Twitter friendship.

Harris was asked about his tribute to Rapinoe before the BCS semifinal game against Notre Dame. 

“She is a feminist and (talks) about how women in the world get treated unfairly, how they get paid different,” said Harris, who also applauded Rapinoe’s views on social and racial injustice. “Her standing up and not listening to all the naysayers, standing up for what she believes in, it’s motivating and it’s inspirational.”

You don’t need to be tutored by Brandy Thompson to understand who taught Harris to respect strong woman.

“I like to think he got that from me,” Tianna said. “Because I did have to show my kids that despite everything we were going through, somebody had to show strength and somebody had to keep them motivated.” 

While Harris’ future is in Pittsburgh, he’s not about to forget the people in Antioch and surrounding communities who helped him survive a tumultuous past. He hosted an afternoon draft-day party for occupants of a homeless shelter where his family stayed as a kid in nearby Richmond. 

He met with the 19 kids in residence and shared stories from his youth. There was pizza, salad and cupcakes. Everyone who wanted a selfie with Harris got one.

“I wanted to make sure that I could give back to the community and show them, ‘If y'all still need anything, like I'm never too big or too whatever to help you guys out.’ I'm always going to be the helping hand,” said Harris, who was named to the 2020 SEC Community Service Team

Tianna hopes her son might consider building community centers for needy families. She’s had so many thoughts like that rolling around her mind since the night the Steelers made her son the No. 24 overall pick in the draft.

Mom thought she would be more emotional when she heard his name called. Instead, she was filled with gratitude and happiness.

All five children are making their way through the world, a roof over everyone’s head. The long nights of staying up, worrying about her baby boy navigating those “two blocks of hell” are over. In the past year alone, Harris has had two East Bay friends shot to death. 

Malu shares one last story, a cautionary tale about the life Harris has left behind here. He recently paid a visit to the old plaza on Sycamore Drive and discovered a few familiar faces still hanging around the neighborhood.  

“The kids gave Najee a hug and wished him well,” Malu said. “But I overheard one of them say, ‘After this week, you can’t come by like this no more.’”

Najee Harris made it out. Those who kept watch over him in the plaza, and still have his best interests at heart, think it’s wise for it to remain that way.

READ ALSO: Read Tom Reed's bonus piece on how Harris plans to take his airshow of hurdling defenders to Pittsburgh.