PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — KJ Johnson Gibson is one of the Clackamas High School Cavaliers lighting up the stat sheet. But life hasn’t always been easy for the senior wide receiver and defensive back.
From the beginning, sports was a pillar him.
“Sports is definitely like my safe space. It kept me calm and, like, mentally focused,” he said. “I was always a calm kid and whenever I was in sports I just took all the stuff that happened in the past and threw it into what I was doing in sports.”
When he was 6, KJ was placed in foster care.
“I was in 4 foster homes before I landed with my adopted family,” he said. “I think, like, the first 2 days I got pretty comfortable but the problem is I think I got too comfortable and then when you had to move a house you were, like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ And so, like, from moving to a different house it was kind of like a lot of memories, but I definitely got through that.”
He’s now been an official member of his adopted family for 6 years. Through all the moving, sports has been the constant. He’s played everything from basketball to track-and-field to football. And his Cavaliers team is another family — and they’re 6-0.
“A bunch of us are seniors and we’ve all been playing, like, since we were in middle school and all the way up until living the dream in high school so we’ve been playing with each other,” he said. “I think that’s probably the reason why we’re doing so well.”