A proud occasion

Johnson’s weekend wait actually started Thursday night at the Diamond Center, a banquet room at the Gary SouthShore Railcats’ minor-league baseball stadium.

More than 100 people who had been a part of his journey from youth star to NFL hopeful buzzed about as the first round of the draft streamed on a big screen. They took photos in front of a stadium backdrop and grazed on food from a buffet line, occasionally making their way to the front to offer hugs and words to the main attraction.

Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson was in attendance. So was West Side principal Marcus Muhammad, a local radio broadcaster and a host of family members and youth coaches who said they knew this weekend was possible when Johnson was a kid.

They told of how he walked everywhere by the time he was 9 months old. How he blew past his speedy cousin in their first footrace. How he leaped 20 feet the first time he tried the long jump. How he took a sweep 80 yards on his youth football team’s first play of the season.

“He made me feel like I was Vince Lombardi,” former youth coach Alan Gaines said.

Johnson and his cousin Jon’Vea Johnson grew up like brothers and had prodigious athletic talent. Nora, Lonnie Sr. and Jason, who played two seasons in the NFL for the Broncos and Steelers, kept them in a constant cycle of sports to push them toward the right path.

“They were too tired to go outside and try to get in trouble,” Nora said.

Jon’Vea, a Toledo wide receiver, also attended the parties and had hoped to be drafted Saturday to give West Side two new NFL players. He wasn’t selected but quickly signed with the Cowboys as a free agent.

It was a proud occasion for many there who had been a part of the tailgates at their Pop Warner games — and who are well aware of the dangerous reputation their city bears.

“You want to see people from Gary successful,” said Richard Ligon, another youth coach. “I can see him now as a very mature young man. He has put a lot of work into football. … They make Gary proud.”

Johnson and his family were conscious of such feelings when they planned his draft parties.

“A lot of deaths, a lot of shootings, parents going to jail, those types of things,” Johnson said of Gary. “It’s a rough city to grow up in. There’s always something negative going on. I’m just trying to be the one to bring something positive to the city.”

Johnson’s family weathered its share of struggles together.

There was the time when Johnson was in high school that his family moved into his grandmother’s two-bedroom home for several months after their home was put on the market without their knowledge, Nora said. Seventeen family members lived under his grandmother’s roof.

“In there like sardines, on top of each other,” Nora said. “We made it work, but it was a rough time.”

And Johnson also lost a good friend to the gun violence that has affected many in his city.

In August 2015, Daja Brookshire, a cheerful girl with whom Johnson ran track, was shot to death as she was stepping out of her boyfriend’s car.

“In the wrong place at the wrong time,” Johnson said. “Bullet wasn’t meant for her.”

She would have been happy to be there this weekend, he said, but her memory was represented. He has several tattoos in her honor on his right hand, figuring they would be seen there when he shook hands or played football.

“It’s the most visual thing they could see without me putting the tattoo on my face,” Johnson said. “I made sure I put it right there, so everybody can see it, and I can share her name throughout this whole process and wherever I go.”

A life-changing conversation

For a period in 2016, it appeared Johnson would give up on college and return to Gary.

He committed to Ohio State out of high school but didn’t qualify academically, so he started his college career at San Bernardino (Calif.) Valley College in 2014. It was one of the worst years of his life, he said, as he struggled with living expenses and being away from his parents, who were separating.

He moved the next season to Garden City (Kansas) Community College, which while in the “middle of nowhere” at least provided him with a meal plan so he could eat. The school also had a coach who changed Johnson’s trajectory.

Johnson played multiple positions in high school but was recruited to college as a wide receiver. Garden City coach Jeff Sims asked him to move to cornerback full time in 2015. He had five interceptions that season, his first coming when Nora spent her rent money to drive 13 hours to see him play.

But his grades still weren’t up to par, and Sims let Nora know he would send Johnson home if he didn’t make a change. Nora, who works two jobs as a bus driver and one as a track coach, had a talk with her son.

“I told him, ‘If college is not what you want to do, you can come home, but just know that you’re going to have to do what I’m doing, which is working two jobs,’” Nora said. “The minute I said that, Lonnie was like, ‘You’re working two jobs?’ And he started bawling these tears. And then I started crying. And he went back to college.

“The next week Coach Sims called me and said, ‘I don’t know what you said to him, but whatever you said to him, in one week this boy has done a (180).’ It really changed his life. It really did.”

Johnson sat out his 2016 season to focus on academics, “one of the hardest things” for somebody whose world revolved around athletic competition.

“It was the family,” Jon’Vea said. “If we didn’t care, he would’ve come back home. He was this close to calling it a wrap and coming back home. We definitely pressed him on.”

In 2017, Johnson qualified to go to Kentucky, and Nora still remembers the look of contentment in his eyes when he stepped onto the field during his official visit. He earned a starting spot in time for the last five games of his junior season and had his first career interception in the Citrus Bowl against Penn State as a senior. He graduated in December, finished his football career with 64 tackles and 12 pass breakups and earned an invitation to the Senior Bowl, where he first met with the Texans.

“My game is still climbing,” Johnson said of focusing solely on cornerback for three seasons. “I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I’m on the up and up. I don’t see myself going backward.”

A new chapter

Hanging high in a West Side hallway are several picture boxes that feature jerseys of the school’s athletes who have gone pro, including four football players.

There are also two empty boxes, which Jason said were made with the future jerseys of Johnson and Jon’Vea in mind.

Johnson had a busy week leading up to the draft. He went to Kentucky to propose to his fiancee, Selena Morgan, and they had a shower for their baby girl, due June 30. He traveled to Nashville, Tenn., to participate in pre-draft activities.

And then he returned to Gary to share his experience with all of the people who were a part of his journey, including Darion, a high school running back who said his brother’s experience taught him to focus on his grades and keep trying.

Johnson knows his story isn’t over. “This is no longer just a sport. This is my job,” he said. But he was happy to be putting an end to this chapter with the people who helped him persist.

“This is my roots,” Johnson said. “I grew up right around the corner. I wanted to bring something back to Gary to inspire a young kid, inspire somebody else to do the same thing. There are different ways to get up out of this city.”