Lonnie Johnson Jr. makes Gary proud
Houston Texans rookie cornerback, a West Side grad, paid for funeral of Calumet football player
Gary recently was named the most miserable city in America by Business Insider.
The city also can lay claim, however, to Lonnie Johnson Jr., the most decent, big-shouldered, compassionate and mature rookie in the NFL.
Humanity, unfortunately, didn’t fit into Business Insider metrics.
Gary might not have fancy restaurants, neatly paved streets, big office buildings and rows of perfectly manicured lawns surrounding cavernous mansions. But it has a big heart.
And it has people with big hearts and deep connections to the “City of the Century.”
You just have to look in the right places.
An aside: What’s the point of that sort of ranking? To humiliate and denigrate a place that is trying hard in its imperfect way to keep breathing?
Onward with my thoughts on Johnson.
It’s been a big year for the West Side graduate. He started his first NFL game in Week 2 at cornerback for the Houston Texans, and he was rightfully celebrated for an act of generosity that is beyond his years.
Like most of the important stuff that Johnson does, he consulted his mother before acting.
Nora Johnson, his mother, still talks to him nearly every day.
He appreciates the daily phone time.
The two are close. She was the person that forced him to confront his future in a stark way when she sat him down at their kitchen table in Gary and told him he had to make a choice a few years ago: Go to school and get your grades up, or return home and “work two jobs like me.”
He was on the verge of getting kicked out of Garden City Community College because he was skipping classes and getting bad grades.
They both cried, and Lonnie Johnson went back to Garden City and started a new act.
He bucked the odds, got his grades up and eventually made his way to Kentucky, where he blossomed into a second-round NFL draft pick.
Lonnie Johnson’s journey to an empathetic, compassionate adult with a soft spot for his hometown and people in need was realized last month when he donated money to cover Curtis Walton’s funeral. Walton, a Calumet freshman football player, died tragically when he drowned in the Warriors’ pool after practice Sep. 12. The funeral for Walton was Sept. 28.
Nora Johnson said her son told her in one of those daily phone calls that he wanted to pay for Walton’s funeral. Walton was from Gary.
Nora Johnson, who moved to Texas, hadn’t heard about Walton’s death.
She was moved to tears.
“My whole body got chills when he told me,” she said. “I think he knows how painful it is to lose someone.”
In an interview in Houston that was posted on a video, Lonnie Johnson said he was knotted up when he heard about Walton.
“It’s hard growing up there,” he said. “It’s a rough city. I know what his family feels like. I’ve been there before. I’ve been in that position plenty of times.”
Lonnie Johnson said he felt the fallout from a tragic death when West Side’s Daja Brookshire, a member of the girls track team, was gunned down after stepping out of her boyfriend’s car in 2015. She was 15.
“She was really close to me,” he said in the video. “I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
He talked with Walton’s mother, Tina Walton, to give her the news, calling her “strong.”
All of this makes Nora Johnson incredibly proud.
Long before everyone else, she was aware of what her son was capable of on and off the field.
“I know that Lonnie has a big heart,” she said. “It wasn’t surprising to me that he’d do something like that. I know my child.”
He said he wants to make Gary a better place, and this is a start.
“My goal is to bring light to the city and give back to my city,” he said.
And there you have it, Business Insider.
There is a lot more to the soul of the city than the vacant rubble of old houses and rows of empty streets.
Ask people like Lonnie Johnson Jr. who are working hard to make Gary glow again.