dawg4life
09-30-2009, 06:23 PM
Sports Illustrated- He is the Sidd Finch of college football, a player so talented and productive it's almost impossible to believe he's real.
But Texas A&M junior quarterback Jerrod Johnson is very real. And despite carrying a team with less talent and more freshmen than all the hyped-up Heisman-watch names, Johnson is making a stronger early-season case for the stiff-arm statue than anyone.
His story -- how he's become one of the most mature and grounded athletes in big-time sports -- is equally inspiring.
You wouldn't know it, however, unless you took the time to drive to College Station to catch a glimpse of this kid who has run like Terrelle Pryor, led like Colt McCoy, thrown like Sam Bradford. Teammates and coaches respect his tough-mindedness and character as much as so many fans admire Tim Tebow's.
But television cameras have not followed Johnson's every move. In fact, they have not followed any of them. Not one of Johnson's monstrous games this season has been televised. The director in the truck has not demanded that cameras capture every facial expression and emotion of Johnson's mother, girlfriend or neighbors. Brent Musberger has not cooed over Johnson's greatness or made it seem that when he traipses effortlessly over football turf he could just as well be walking on water. Thom Brennaman has not gushed over spending five or 20 minutes with Johnson, saying your life would be better for it.
As one Austin columnist put it after watching Johnson run for three touchdowns and pass for three more in a 56-19 pasting of Alabama-Birmingham on Saturday, "Stick [Johnson] in Tim Tebow's uniform, and after the numbers he put up ... the Heisman race would be over."
Johnson's coming out party figures to come this Saturday, when the 3-0 Aggies take on Arkansas at Cowboys Stadium. And when America finally does say hello to Jerrod Johnson, a.k.a. Sidd, chances are it will want to pay attention to what college football truly is all about.
Johnson doesn't drink, and never has tried anything stronger than Advil when it comes to drugs. His name is often misspelled or mispronounced. It's Jerrod, as in ja-ROD. He is compared, foolishly, to Vince Young or JaMarcus Russell, mostly because he is a big quarterback and black. He is more polished as a passer, a smooth runner and often the smartest player on the field.
He made an early impression, literally, on the Aggies program over the summer as he entered his first full season as the starting quarterback. He woke up at 5 a.m. everyday for boot camp-type workouts. He telephoned incoming freshman and encouraged them to meet for 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 practices with veterans. He held meetings with every offensive player, meticulously using a laser pointer to go over individual assignments on every play in the Aggies playbook.
Johnson has put a once-great football program that finished 4-8 a year ago on his shoulders. He leads the nation's No. 1 offense in coach Mike Sherman's second year in Aggieland, and through leadership and on-field production, he is carrying the Aggies back to respectability.
Comparisons? He averages twice as many passing yards (320.3 to 160.7) as Tebow.
He has three times more rushing yards (196 to 61), more rushing touchdowns (4 to 1) and a higher passer rating (167.0 to 150.9) than McCoy.
He's thrown more touchdown passes (9), with a higher completion percentage (67.5), than Ryan Mallett, Jacory Harris and Terrelle Pryor.
He averages more total offense per game (385.6) than Taylor Potts, Jimmy Clausen and Todd Reesing. His passer rating is higher than Case Keenum's, Zac Robinson's and Max Hall's. He accounts for more points per game (26.0) than any other player in America. He ranks in the top 11 nationally in every passing category, as well as in total offense (third behind quarterbacks Greg Alexander of Hawaii and Case Keenum of Houston).
He stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 245 pounds. He is a powerful runner with a deceptive and long stride. He can throw the ball 70 yards, with ease. At the Peyton Manning camp over the summer, he beat McCoy, Bradford, Greg McElroy and a couple dozen other Division I quarterbacks in a passing skills competition. At the camp, the Manning family patriarch, Archie, told Johnson, "You have it all."
And in just three games in 2009, Johnson has thrown for 1,157 yards, rushed for those four touchdowns, passed for nine and thrown zero interceptions. Zero. He has started just 13 games in his collegiate career, but is on pace to obliterate long-standing Aggies records.
Already, he has posted four of the school's top nine single-game total offense performances. He has four of the top six all-time single-game passing marks (a career-high 419 against Kansas State last year). He already has established the single-season record for touchdowns (24) and is on pace to become the all-time completions percentage leader.
His is Sidd-like in every way.
Growing up in the Houston suburb of -- appropriately -- Humble, Texas, he was considered a pro prospect in baseball and basketball. As a sophomore in high school, Johnson clocked 90-mph on the radar gun with his fastball. As a junior in high school, Johnson earned a basketball scholarship to A&M. Current Marquette coach Buzz Williams, a former assistant at A&M, said of Johnson shortly after his commitment in 2005, "he could start for us right now."
But there's more to Jerrod than numbers and skills.
He is the son of a high school teacher and high school administrator. Pam and Larry Johnson's faith and compassion ran so deep they took in nearly two dozen foster children while Jerrod and his brother, Marquis, were growing up. When Jerrod was 3, the state took custody of the child of one of Pam's friend. Pam's heart broke at the thought of the child, a boy named Kendall, not having a home. Larry and Pam went through foster parent training and raised the child until the state found a permanent home.
From then on, the Johnsons gave foster children everything they could -- holiday parties, gifts, vacations, a church home, a family's love. They accepted kids of every age, so long as they were boys.
Some of the children were infants. Some were young teens. Some were children of crack and heroine addicts. Some suffered from severe developmental and health issues. Some simply were abandoned. Some were black, some were white, some were Hispanic. It never mattered.
"We didn't care if they were special kids, overweight, sick, and we didn't see color," Pam said. "We didn't talk about any of that in our family. We're all related. It doesn't matter what color."
The children did everything with Jerrod and Marquis, a former Prairie View A&M end now coaching strength and conditioning at Eastern Michigan. The boys treated the kids like family, playing with them, kidding them, shooting hoops, teaching them dance moves or songs, helping with homework.
"Some people told me that by taking on all these kids, some with [behavioral] problems, that it would rub off on my kids and they would be problems," Pam said. "The opposite happened. It taught our boys to value family."
Some foster children stayed with the Johnsons for years. One such child, Joey, suffered from DiGeorge Syndrome, a degenerative neuromuscular organ and growth condition. Joey loved to dance and became very close with Jerrod, who has a deep love for music and dancing. Not long after Jerrod left for College Station as a freshman, Joey suffered heart failure as Pam was leaving for work and died in her arms.
Another boy, Joe, was part of the family for nine years, longer than any other, and was like a brother to Jerrod and Marquis. Joe was diagnosed with developmental issues, but Pam didn't buy it. She gradually reduced the amount of medication Joe took, while Marquis and Jerrod taught him how to play basketball. Joe made the varsity basketball team at Smiley High in Houston, where Pam taught, graduated high school and lives in a group home in the Houston area.
With deeds as much as words, Larry and Pam taught their sons to accept everything and everyone. And to take nothing for granted.
Larry took on extra jobs to help pay for all the expenses of raising his boys and foster kids. A former Texas A&M safety and wide receiver, Johnson became one of the Humble area's most beloved coaches and administrators.
When Jerrod played elite summer-league basketball from 2002 to 2005, helping a Houston hoops team reach the AAU Elite Eight three consecutive years and the Final Four once, Larry Johnson was a volunteer assistant coach. The travel team featured such future Division I players as Johnson, Arizona point guard Nic Wise, Nevada-Las Vegas forward Darris Santee, TCU guard Jason Ebie, Texas Tech forward Mike Singletary, Bucknell wing Stephen Tyree and Rice footballer Pierre Beasley. Yet while all that front-line talent scrimmaged during practices, Larry Johnson often took bench players to the other end of the gym to work on rebounding, shooting, footwork. Everyone mattered.
The lessons stuck with Jerrod. When he woke before dawn to work out and organize meetings and scrimmages in the summer, he made sure every player on the Aggies depth chart and walk-ons got calls. At his 21st birthday in July, Johnson and his friends organized a party at a College Station nightclub. College kids acted like college kids all night. And Jerrod sang, danced and partied, but he drank only sports drinks and juice. He has, however, promised Aggies teammates that if they make it to the Big 12 title game, he will, "take a sip" of some wine or champagne.
The college football world is about to become impressed with what Jerrod Johnson has become. The one person he most wishes could be at Cowboys Stadium to watch the next step in this marvelous season, however, will not be there.
In December 2007 while the Aggies were preparing for the Alamo Bowl and just months before starting his first game at quarterback, Jerrod received a call from his brother. He said he needed to come home because Larry was in the hospital. It was only after Jerrod arrived that he realized his father had suffered a massive stroke.
Even until his final few breaths, Larry Johnson was trying to help kids do things the right way. A former Humble High student called "Mr. Johnson" asking for advice on transferring to another college on that Saturday afternoon. Jerrod clicked in to talk with his father. Then, Pam's mother clicked in.
As Larry Johnson handed the phone to Pam, he mumbled something. He then collapsed to the floor. Two days later, Larry died with his sons and wife by his side.
At Larry's funeral, Jerrod spoke in detail of the lessons his father taught him. Marquis did an impeccable, humorous impersonation of how his boisterous, affable father would implore kids to always do the right thing. On the front row of the church sitting next to Pam was Joe, the Foster child who spent nine years with the family.
After the service, hundreds of former players and students greeted the family and shared stories of how "Mr. Johnson" affected their lives. A year later, the basketball court at Humble High was renamed Larry Johnson Court.
On a recent Saturday evening in College Station, Pam Johnson walked into Kyle Field with her mother and two young children -- a 3-year-old Hispanic boy named Anthony and a 2-year-old black child named Trey. Both of their mothers are drug addicts. The babies were in awe of the game-day surroundings and all the people. They never had seen anything like it.
Larry Johnson never got to see his son start a college football game. But whenever Pam does, and every time someone else does, what they see is exactly what Larry Johnson wanted: a kid who treats everyone around him the same, no matter where they're from, what they look like or what's happened in the past.
It's how he became one of the best college football stories you never knew.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/john_lopez/09/30/jerrod-johnson/index.html
But Texas A&M junior quarterback Jerrod Johnson is very real. And despite carrying a team with less talent and more freshmen than all the hyped-up Heisman-watch names, Johnson is making a stronger early-season case for the stiff-arm statue than anyone.
His story -- how he's become one of the most mature and grounded athletes in big-time sports -- is equally inspiring.
You wouldn't know it, however, unless you took the time to drive to College Station to catch a glimpse of this kid who has run like Terrelle Pryor, led like Colt McCoy, thrown like Sam Bradford. Teammates and coaches respect his tough-mindedness and character as much as so many fans admire Tim Tebow's.
But television cameras have not followed Johnson's every move. In fact, they have not followed any of them. Not one of Johnson's monstrous games this season has been televised. The director in the truck has not demanded that cameras capture every facial expression and emotion of Johnson's mother, girlfriend or neighbors. Brent Musberger has not cooed over Johnson's greatness or made it seem that when he traipses effortlessly over football turf he could just as well be walking on water. Thom Brennaman has not gushed over spending five or 20 minutes with Johnson, saying your life would be better for it.
As one Austin columnist put it after watching Johnson run for three touchdowns and pass for three more in a 56-19 pasting of Alabama-Birmingham on Saturday, "Stick [Johnson] in Tim Tebow's uniform, and after the numbers he put up ... the Heisman race would be over."
Johnson's coming out party figures to come this Saturday, when the 3-0 Aggies take on Arkansas at Cowboys Stadium. And when America finally does say hello to Jerrod Johnson, a.k.a. Sidd, chances are it will want to pay attention to what college football truly is all about.
Johnson doesn't drink, and never has tried anything stronger than Advil when it comes to drugs. His name is often misspelled or mispronounced. It's Jerrod, as in ja-ROD. He is compared, foolishly, to Vince Young or JaMarcus Russell, mostly because he is a big quarterback and black. He is more polished as a passer, a smooth runner and often the smartest player on the field.
He made an early impression, literally, on the Aggies program over the summer as he entered his first full season as the starting quarterback. He woke up at 5 a.m. everyday for boot camp-type workouts. He telephoned incoming freshman and encouraged them to meet for 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 practices with veterans. He held meetings with every offensive player, meticulously using a laser pointer to go over individual assignments on every play in the Aggies playbook.
Johnson has put a once-great football program that finished 4-8 a year ago on his shoulders. He leads the nation's No. 1 offense in coach Mike Sherman's second year in Aggieland, and through leadership and on-field production, he is carrying the Aggies back to respectability.
Comparisons? He averages twice as many passing yards (320.3 to 160.7) as Tebow.
He has three times more rushing yards (196 to 61), more rushing touchdowns (4 to 1) and a higher passer rating (167.0 to 150.9) than McCoy.
He's thrown more touchdown passes (9), with a higher completion percentage (67.5), than Ryan Mallett, Jacory Harris and Terrelle Pryor.
He averages more total offense per game (385.6) than Taylor Potts, Jimmy Clausen and Todd Reesing. His passer rating is higher than Case Keenum's, Zac Robinson's and Max Hall's. He accounts for more points per game (26.0) than any other player in America. He ranks in the top 11 nationally in every passing category, as well as in total offense (third behind quarterbacks Greg Alexander of Hawaii and Case Keenum of Houston).
He stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 245 pounds. He is a powerful runner with a deceptive and long stride. He can throw the ball 70 yards, with ease. At the Peyton Manning camp over the summer, he beat McCoy, Bradford, Greg McElroy and a couple dozen other Division I quarterbacks in a passing skills competition. At the camp, the Manning family patriarch, Archie, told Johnson, "You have it all."
And in just three games in 2009, Johnson has thrown for 1,157 yards, rushed for those four touchdowns, passed for nine and thrown zero interceptions. Zero. He has started just 13 games in his collegiate career, but is on pace to obliterate long-standing Aggies records.
Already, he has posted four of the school's top nine single-game total offense performances. He has four of the top six all-time single-game passing marks (a career-high 419 against Kansas State last year). He already has established the single-season record for touchdowns (24) and is on pace to become the all-time completions percentage leader.
His is Sidd-like in every way.
Growing up in the Houston suburb of -- appropriately -- Humble, Texas, he was considered a pro prospect in baseball and basketball. As a sophomore in high school, Johnson clocked 90-mph on the radar gun with his fastball. As a junior in high school, Johnson earned a basketball scholarship to A&M. Current Marquette coach Buzz Williams, a former assistant at A&M, said of Johnson shortly after his commitment in 2005, "he could start for us right now."
But there's more to Jerrod than numbers and skills.
He is the son of a high school teacher and high school administrator. Pam and Larry Johnson's faith and compassion ran so deep they took in nearly two dozen foster children while Jerrod and his brother, Marquis, were growing up. When Jerrod was 3, the state took custody of the child of one of Pam's friend. Pam's heart broke at the thought of the child, a boy named Kendall, not having a home. Larry and Pam went through foster parent training and raised the child until the state found a permanent home.
From then on, the Johnsons gave foster children everything they could -- holiday parties, gifts, vacations, a church home, a family's love. They accepted kids of every age, so long as they were boys.
Some of the children were infants. Some were young teens. Some were children of crack and heroine addicts. Some suffered from severe developmental and health issues. Some simply were abandoned. Some were black, some were white, some were Hispanic. It never mattered.
"We didn't care if they were special kids, overweight, sick, and we didn't see color," Pam said. "We didn't talk about any of that in our family. We're all related. It doesn't matter what color."
The children did everything with Jerrod and Marquis, a former Prairie View A&M end now coaching strength and conditioning at Eastern Michigan. The boys treated the kids like family, playing with them, kidding them, shooting hoops, teaching them dance moves or songs, helping with homework.
"Some people told me that by taking on all these kids, some with [behavioral] problems, that it would rub off on my kids and they would be problems," Pam said. "The opposite happened. It taught our boys to value family."
Some foster children stayed with the Johnsons for years. One such child, Joey, suffered from DiGeorge Syndrome, a degenerative neuromuscular organ and growth condition. Joey loved to dance and became very close with Jerrod, who has a deep love for music and dancing. Not long after Jerrod left for College Station as a freshman, Joey suffered heart failure as Pam was leaving for work and died in her arms.
Another boy, Joe, was part of the family for nine years, longer than any other, and was like a brother to Jerrod and Marquis. Joe was diagnosed with developmental issues, but Pam didn't buy it. She gradually reduced the amount of medication Joe took, while Marquis and Jerrod taught him how to play basketball. Joe made the varsity basketball team at Smiley High in Houston, where Pam taught, graduated high school and lives in a group home in the Houston area.
With deeds as much as words, Larry and Pam taught their sons to accept everything and everyone. And to take nothing for granted.
Larry took on extra jobs to help pay for all the expenses of raising his boys and foster kids. A former Texas A&M safety and wide receiver, Johnson became one of the Humble area's most beloved coaches and administrators.
When Jerrod played elite summer-league basketball from 2002 to 2005, helping a Houston hoops team reach the AAU Elite Eight three consecutive years and the Final Four once, Larry Johnson was a volunteer assistant coach. The travel team featured such future Division I players as Johnson, Arizona point guard Nic Wise, Nevada-Las Vegas forward Darris Santee, TCU guard Jason Ebie, Texas Tech forward Mike Singletary, Bucknell wing Stephen Tyree and Rice footballer Pierre Beasley. Yet while all that front-line talent scrimmaged during practices, Larry Johnson often took bench players to the other end of the gym to work on rebounding, shooting, footwork. Everyone mattered.
The lessons stuck with Jerrod. When he woke before dawn to work out and organize meetings and scrimmages in the summer, he made sure every player on the Aggies depth chart and walk-ons got calls. At his 21st birthday in July, Johnson and his friends organized a party at a College Station nightclub. College kids acted like college kids all night. And Jerrod sang, danced and partied, but he drank only sports drinks and juice. He has, however, promised Aggies teammates that if they make it to the Big 12 title game, he will, "take a sip" of some wine or champagne.
The college football world is about to become impressed with what Jerrod Johnson has become. The one person he most wishes could be at Cowboys Stadium to watch the next step in this marvelous season, however, will not be there.
In December 2007 while the Aggies were preparing for the Alamo Bowl and just months before starting his first game at quarterback, Jerrod received a call from his brother. He said he needed to come home because Larry was in the hospital. It was only after Jerrod arrived that he realized his father had suffered a massive stroke.
Even until his final few breaths, Larry Johnson was trying to help kids do things the right way. A former Humble High student called "Mr. Johnson" asking for advice on transferring to another college on that Saturday afternoon. Jerrod clicked in to talk with his father. Then, Pam's mother clicked in.
As Larry Johnson handed the phone to Pam, he mumbled something. He then collapsed to the floor. Two days later, Larry died with his sons and wife by his side.
At Larry's funeral, Jerrod spoke in detail of the lessons his father taught him. Marquis did an impeccable, humorous impersonation of how his boisterous, affable father would implore kids to always do the right thing. On the front row of the church sitting next to Pam was Joe, the Foster child who spent nine years with the family.
After the service, hundreds of former players and students greeted the family and shared stories of how "Mr. Johnson" affected their lives. A year later, the basketball court at Humble High was renamed Larry Johnson Court.
On a recent Saturday evening in College Station, Pam Johnson walked into Kyle Field with her mother and two young children -- a 3-year-old Hispanic boy named Anthony and a 2-year-old black child named Trey. Both of their mothers are drug addicts. The babies were in awe of the game-day surroundings and all the people. They never had seen anything like it.
Larry Johnson never got to see his son start a college football game. But whenever Pam does, and every time someone else does, what they see is exactly what Larry Johnson wanted: a kid who treats everyone around him the same, no matter where they're from, what they look like or what's happened in the past.
It's how he became one of the best college football stories you never knew.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/john_lopez/09/30/jerrod-johnson/index.html