Key Highlights
- "I like training and my parents are always pushing me and telling me to believe in myself."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn his elementary school days, Johnny spent a lot of time playing soccer and basketball with his friends.
- While soccer was his main sport at the time, Johnny said his passion shifted from soccer to basketball after joining the MLCA/CCS middle school basketball team in sixth grade. Johnny played basketball all throughout his middle school career and once he reached high school, he transitioned onto the varsity squad. Lions Basketball Head Coach Emerson Ferguson said he had first heard about Johnny's abilities from the middle school coaches who spoke highly of him.
- Once he was on the team, the coach saw signs of that excellence, which he then saw grow over his sophomore and junior seasons."I didn't play that much, and it was rough; I was still learning," Johnny said.
- "But then I trained a lot in the off-season and into my sophomore year and then I just got better from there."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOnce in his sophomore year, the high school football program had also begun at MLCA/CCS.
- Johnny said he had played catch with his friends growing up, so he decided to join the team that fall and immediately began shaping himself to be competitive in yet another sport."I would like to think that I'm pretty athletic," said Johnny. That season, Johnny started out as a receiver on the team and would have continued down that route, but in his junior season, he had to transition into the quarterback position after the starting quarterback, James Robertson, got injured."They were training me as a backup if James got injured so they just threw me in there and I had to learn over the season and got better every game," he said. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Lions finished their first year in the Central Washington B League 7-2 and the following year 5-5.