Jesuit Dallas Athletics

A true ambassador for the sport of soccer, Ryan Higginbotham used a proven pedigree as a prolific scorer to secure success at the high school, collegiate and professional level before embarking upon a wildly successful coaching career.  

Continuing an unprecedented string of talent that played for legendary head coach and Sports Hall of Fame member Charlie DeLong, Higginbotham won a pair of Texas Christian Interscholastic League (TCIL) state championships for the Rangers, securing titles in 1993 and 1994. During his senior season, Higginbotham ranked among the top goal scorers in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and he finished his career with 39 total appearances and 39 career goals.

Higginbotham attended Furman University after leaving Jesuit, emerging as a difference-maker for the Paladins. The 1996 Southern Conference (SoCon) Player of the Year, Higginbotham contributed to four straight regular season conference championships and two conference tournament titles, earning Tournament MVP honors in 1996 and 1997. In the 1997 SoCon Championship Game against UNC-Greensboro, Higginbotham scored all three goals to lift the Paladins to a 3-1 win, earning him a spot on the Soccer America Team of the Week. 

Higginbotham, who also landed on the All-SoCon second team in 1995 and 1996, finished out his collegiate career with 86 points on 36 goals and 14 assists. After graduating from Furman, Higginbotham played professional soccer with the South Carolina Shamrocks of the United States Interregional Soccer League (USISL).

As a coach, Higginbotham is a four-time national champion in club soccer, earning all four titles with the Dallas Texans Soccer Club and earning the 2009 NSCAA National Girls Youth Coach of the Year award. Making stops as a NCAA Division I coach at Furman and Akron, Higginbotham has been the assistant coach for the TCU women’s soccer team since 2012, where he helped the Horned Frogs secure their first ever NCAA tournament bid in 2016 and the program’s first Big 12 Conference Championship in 2021. In October 2024, Higginbotham was instrumental in guiding TCU to its third Big 12 conference regular-season title in five years.