Dillard’s Chris Johnson Jr. got faster at the right time to win a pair of state track titles
No sprinter dominated the state championship quite like Chris Johnson Jr.
The Dillard junior won a pair of Class 3A titles in the 100- and 200-meter dashes and posted the fastest times across all four classifications in both events last month in Gainesville.
It’s why he’s the Miami Herald’s Broward County Boys’ Track and Field Athlete of the Year.
“I accomplished a lot this season, so I’m proud of myself,” Johnson said, “but I’m never satisfied. I’m always trying to get better.”
With one season left, Johnson has a chance to solidify himself as one of the best sprinters in the nation, but track and field isn’t even his top priority. He admits it’s a secondary sport in his mind and he boasts more than two dozen scholarship offers from Division I football programs, including the Miami Hurricanes, Florida Gators and Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
The two sports, of course, go together. Part of the reason Johnson is so coveted as a running back is because of his speed.
His performance on the track caught coaches’ attention as he reeled in more than a dozen of his offers in May while he was making a run at his state titles.
Along the way, he ran into some challenges, too. Johnson shockingly finished second in the 100 dash at the District 14-3A championship in April and didn’t win any gold medals at the Region 4-3A championship in May.
At the 3A championship, he dropped more than three-tenths of a second from his district time in the 100 three weeks earlier and more than threetenths of a second from his region time in the 200 a week earlier.
“I [barely] lost during the whole season and then me losing at districts — that was big for me,” Johnson said. “That made me feel some type of way, like, ‘Did I do something wrong?’ I was getting down on myself when that happened, but I came back to practice working, getting better and then I got better . ... That day, I knew that I had to get better. It was something that I had to do to get faster and that’s what I
did.”
Johnson also finished fourth in the 1,600 relay and seventh in the 400 relay at the 3A championship. The Panthers finished one point short of repeating as the 3A champions after Johnson helped
them win their first-ever title last year as part of their gold-medal 400relay team.
Johnson gave credit to Chris Johnson Sr., his father, for keeping him on track.
“Without my dad, I
wouldn’t be in this position that I’m in, so I’m very fortunate to have,” Johnson Jr. said. “My dad — he didn’t have the necessities that I had, so he’s teaching me to become a young man at such a young age.”