Ohio State cornerback is a solid bowler, too
Who’s got the best nickname on the Buckeyes?
There’s a lot of good names. We have (freshman cornerback Jakailin Johnson). We call him “Snacks.” He’s always with a snack, no matter what, in his bag. He’s always eating junk food, always junk food snacks. That’s just his thing. Yeah, he’s got the coolest one.
Do you have one?
They call me “Cowboy.”
Why?
So my freshman year, when I first started playing DB, I wasn’t good at all. I always just stood out there like I was riding a saddle the whole time I was trying to cover somebody. So it looked crazy. But it’s all right.
Do you like being called “Cowboy?”
At first, I did not like it. It took me about a year and a half to like it. But now? If someone called me that, I would answer. But not outside the facility.
When you’re not playing football, what do you like to do?
When I’m not playing football, I really just watch Youtube videos, like gaming videos. And I play the game. And I play with my dog all the time.
What kind of dog do you have and what’s the name?
My dog, he is a mastiff, Doberman, St. Bernard, German shepherd, Russell terrier mix. So he’s 6 months right now. He’s about 120, 130 pounds. I don’t do little dogs. I can’t do that.
And his name is?
Honcho.
How’d you come up with the name Honcho?
He’s going to be huge, so I want him to be the boss, the big boss one day. Call him Honcho. He’s got a brindle color, so it’s pretty cool.
What’s something you do that’s important that doesn’t have anything to do with football?
Really just the most important thing for me is just having my friends and family.
I try to talk to my parents every day. I talk to my brother a lot. Really just my mom, my dad, my brother, they’re the most important people in the world. Who else is inspirational to you? My mom and my dad. My mom has faced a lot of obstacles. She right now has lupus. One day, hopefully my dreams come true, being in the NFL and taking care of her and hopefully help everyone else with lupus. My dad, he motivates me to keep working hard. Growing up, he had
like four jobs all the time. He was always working, working, working; because he said you can never work enough until you’re comfortable, and he’s never comfortable.
What is the one job that your dad had that you’re like, ‘Nope. Can’t do it. Would not do it. I can’t even believe you did that, Dad.’
Honestly, all his jobs I like because I got to do all of them. But the one job he said I can never do, right now he’s a firefighter . ... He just got promoted to captain a few years ago. He just keeps on trying to work his way up the ranks.
My mom and dad shot that down. When I was little, they said, ‘You’ll never be a firefighter. Don’t even think about it.’
I think I know, but why is that?
It’s dangerous. Like walking through fire?
That’s unadvisable, walking through fire?
Yeah. It’s not good.
I know you said you want to help your mom by becoming an NFL player someday. If you couldn’t play football, what would you want to do?
It would have something to do with sports. I love sports so much. I grew up playing every sport you can even think of. I played golf, tennis, bowling — I got scholarships for bowling, too — baseball and all that stuff. It was really exciting.
Can you tell me how you got into bowling?
When I was younger, I didn’t grow up in the best environment, so my parents tried to send me away to do everything. So I was always playing baseball during the baseball season, football in football season, basketball (in basketball season), tennis whenever in the summer. Bowling was my dad’s thing. He used to be in this bowling league every Saturday. I would always go as a little kid. I was probably 6 years old, watching him bowl. Obviously, I got older. I was probably 8, 9, I started bowling. So dad got me into a little league, and I just kept going. Racked up some scholarship money when I was younger, just me doing a lot of tournaments. I was getting thousands of dollars from winning bowling tournaments. But I never used it, because football.
Have you bowled a perfect game?
Only on the Wii. Most I probably had was 230, and I was probably 14, 15.
Do you ever hustle your teammates with the bowling, like take them to the lanes?
No, I couldn’t do them like that. I thought about it; but I was like, I can’t be like that.