Top goalkeeper stays positive on lonely trail
“It’s a privilege to be able to stand here and represent so many people.”
Ashleigh Johnson, U.S. goalkeeper
TOKYO — There are some parts of loneliness that Ashleigh Johnson’s teammates understand now. They all wish their parents could be here. They all wish they could look into the bleachers and see their big brother hooting and hollering, or an old friend smiling back at them. They all crave a hug instead of a congratulatory text message from halfway around the world.
That’s how it is inside this Summer Olympics bubble, one with no family and no fans. Look inside any mostly empty arena, any mostly empty skate park, any mostly empty aquatics center, and you’ll find athletes longing for a familiar face, or for some reminder of home. For many of them, this sense of isolation is new.
But, see, Johnson has been living inside her own version of a bubble for a while now. Don’t get her wrong — she’s not complaining, and she considers herself wildly grateful for all of the support she has received from so many. It’s just that, as much as she adores her teammates and coaches, there is one part of her experience they’ll never quite get.
“There’s a lot that’s scary about being alone,” Johnson said.
To hear her say this is striking, because even as she utters those words, Johnson beams with a confidence that makes her seem invincible. This magnetic, effervescent 6foot1 Floridian is one of the truly elite competitors of these Tokyo Games — a star on one of the most dominant teams in any sport, and perhaps the best women’s waterpolo goalkeeper in the world.
But when Team USA fought off China 127 on Monday, taking another step toward a third consecutive gold medal, Johnson was the only Black woman in the pool. She almost always is the only Black woman in the pool.
Five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, she became the first Black woman ever to play water polo for the United States in the Olympics, and as the Americans kept racking up world championships and Johnson kept emerging as one of the most popular performers in the sport, she’s still, well, alone.
“I feel like I’m representing a lot more than just myself, and that feels like a lot of responsibility,” said Johnson, a 26yearold who played in college at Princeton. “Just being here and being a mirror for young boys and girls who look to me to see themselves in. But, also, I welcome that responsibility. It’s a privilege to be able to stand here and represent so many people, and to be the pathway that people can follow.”
So what was her pathway? It started in Miami, where she was born and raised as the third of five children of Jamaican parents. When her mother signed up all five kids at the community pool, Johnson’s oldest brother, Blake, was the first to take notice of water polo.
“He saw them passing and shooting, and said, ‘I’ll try it,’ ” Johnson said. “We all followed him.”
By the time she was in the seventh or eighth grade, those who knew the sport well started to take notice. One day, Adam Krikorian, then the head coach at UCLA, received a message from an assistant who was running a youth camp in Florida.
“Adam, you have to recruit this girl,” the assistant told the head coach. “She’s going to be one of the best goalkeepers in the world.”
Krikorian rolled his eyes. After all, how could anyone make that kind of prediction about a 13yearold?
Well, Krikorian now is the head coach of Team USA, and is relying on that girl to help lead him to the medal stand for the second Olympics in a row.
There were struggles along the way. Johnson said that even though she received lots of helpful guidance, she considered giving up the sport more than once.
“There were many times when I felt like my race, my skin, made me different, and it was too different,” Johnson said. “Especially when I was younger, before I understood that being different was my strength.”
Krikorian doesn’t pretend to have any idea what it’s been like for Johnson to break that kind of ground. But he marvels at just about everything she does, including the way she has begun to engage her teammates on complicated subjects, especially since the murder of George Floyd last year.
“She’s got a unique ability to have that discussion, and that conversation, and keep it very calm,” Krikorian said. “And I think that’s a skill that’s so important in these days.”
Johnson doesn’t shy away from the “trailblazer” description. In Florida, she has helped put together a swim program for underserved children, and she said she has made a conscious decision to be more comfortable talking about her experience as one of the only Black women in her sport.
“I definitely had to learn how,” Johnson said. “Part of my learning was understanding the history of aquatics, and the exclusion of people of color in the U.S., and understanding the narrative of ‘Black people don’t swim.’
“I had to understand where it came from, why it persists, in order to break through it. I also had to take a step back and realize how grateful I am to be here.”
On Monday afternoon, she also was excited to get back to her cell phone. Her first message was going to be to her mother, and the next to her brother William, the superfan who was devastated he wasn’t allowed to cheer her in Tokyo.
And if those calls don’t stop Johnson from feeling lonely every now and then? She’s OK with that.
It’s less scary than it used to be.