USA TODAY International Edition

Texas LB pushed past ‘life full of setbacks’

- Jori Epstein USA TODAY

AUSTIN, Texas – Gary Johnson cradled gently the 4-month-old who claimed the smallest burnt orange T-shirt at Texas’ pro day.

“Say cheese,” the linebacker told his son, G’Amir, from the 10-yard line of the Longhorns’ indoor practice facility. “You don’t want to smile?”

Dad smiled anyway as personnel from all 32 NFL teams packed up. He had reason to.

Johnson didn’t run the 40-yard dash in front of attendees that afternoon. He hadn’t needed to after clocking a blazing 4.43-second mark, second fastest among linebacker­s, at the NFL Scouting Combine a month earlier.

The 6-0, 226-pound Johnson focused instead on selling scouts on his hip flexibility and hands. He focused on cementing the opportunit­y he had longed for through years in foster care, in group homes and at junior college. He focused on ensuring he could provide for a mother in poverty, eight younger siblings and two children of his own, each less than 5 months old.

Johnson focused on the towel tucked into his waist. It read simply: “Who I Do it For.”

The faces smiling back from the towel reminded Johnson of the stakes across what his guardian Lawayne Garrett calls a “life full of setbacks.” Johnson wastes no time on self-pity. “It’s not really a sad story,” he told USA TODAY. “It’s my life. If you know me, you know me.”

Breckyn Hager got to know Johnson at a team bowling outing. Hager called “shotgun.” No protest. Johnson explained he only rode in the back seat.

“In the back, when things happen, you can get out quicker, react quicker,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot of violence that go on where I come from.”

Hager’s curiosity skyrockete­d. His next words: “OK, tell me everything.” Johnson did.

He explained how his mother, Vanessa White, delivered him at 14. She battled drug addiction and lost him to the Alabama foster care system four years later. He shuffled between family members, state-supported child welfare and guardians through high school. The same moves aimed at ensuring his safety sometimes robbed him of football.

Johnson lived with his grandfathe­r briefly when he was about 10. Then he got into a fight at school. Granddad came to campus upset his grandson had fought and hit Johnson in the face with a belt buckle. Alabama’s Department of Human Resources sent Johnson to a group home for sixth and seventh grade, and it prohibited football. Johnson remembers “just wanting to get out.” Mom begged him not to give up.

“I call him ‘G,’ and I said, ‘G, you don’t want this,’ ” White said. “‘Just because I — excuse my language — (expletive) up my life doesn’t mean you have to.”

Johnson returned to play in eighth and ninth grade. But he was ruled academical­ly ineligible as a sophomore and benched as a transfer the following year after moving to an AAU teammate’s poultry farm in Horton. Garrett, Johnson’s teammate’s father, describes the community as “white as white.”

“He’d never been in the country where we’re at,” Garrett said. “We come up the road and he’s seeing all these fences and looking, just me and him. He said, ‘Where I’m from, fences are made to keep people out. Up here, fences are made to keep stuff in.’ ”

In Horton, Johnson learned to wash clothes and care for the farm’s 88,000 chickens. He lettered as a senior in football, basketball and track, winning a state title with his 10.59-second 100meter dash. Johnson also earned his family’s first high school degree in four generation­s. The diploma rides safely in his car armrest, he explains, only because “I got to get a bigger wallet.”

Then Johnson exploded at Dodge City (Kansas) Community College, where he collected a league-best 133 tackles along with 81⁄2 sacks, four intercepti­ons, three fumble recoveries and three scores off turnovers in 2016.

Johnson committed to Alabama but reversed course when the online math class for which he had taken out more than $1,000 in student loans didn’t meet Southeaste­rn Conference requiremen­ts. Instead, he made what he called a “business decision” not to forfeit the funds and risk failing a replacemen­t course. He completed his associate’s degree that May and reported to Texas.

It was then, Texas linebacker Anthony Wheeler explains, that teammates needed to take Johnson under their wing. Johnson didn’t immediatel­y start games. He clashed with defensive coordinato­r Todd Orlando. Struggling to adjust to more-demanding academics and scheduling requiremen­ts, Johnson “stayed in trouble,” Wheeler told USA TODAY. “When he first got here, he was always on punishment.”

The entire linebacker­s corps shouldered consequenc­es. Extra running, bear crawls and waking about 5 or 6 a.m. to clean. They called it “dawn patrol.”

Eventually, Johnson embraced Orlando’s rules and schematic imperative­s. Johnson went to class. He boosted his GPA from 1.5 to 2.6.

“He grew a lot and became a man,” Wheeler said. “He learned, ‘I got to do better for my brothers and for myself.’ ”

That success translated to the field, where he went on to make 20 starts in two seasons. A team-high 90 tackles as a senior brought Johnson’s career total to 140, along with 221⁄2 tackles for loss, 81⁄2 sacks, three forced fumbles, a fumble recovery and 12 quarterbac­k hurries. After his 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, NFL teams reached out. Johnson visited Pittsburgh and Oakland. Representa­tives from each organizati­on compliment­ed his versatilit­y, how he would match up against athletic tight ends and big-bodied receivers. Think a bigger hybrid dime with utility in sub packages and on special teams.

“There’s potential there,” said ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay, who projects Johnson as a middle-of-Day 3 selection. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he continues to get better over time because he has that ability and just the raw talent.”

Longhorns quarterbac­k Sam Ehlinger agrees. First, he and Johnson respected each other’s game. Then Ehlinger asked Johnson where he came from.

Like with Hager, he started from the beginning. Johnson didn’t sugarcoat the belt buckle, shootings or nights when dinner consisted of “oodle noodles.”

Soon, a friendship blossomed between the white quarterbac­k from affluent Austin Westlake High School and the black linebacker from Birmingham. Ehlinger invited “one of the realest people I’d ever met” to his home.

“I really wanted to bring him over and really let him know he was welcome in my family and welcome in my heart,” Ehlinger told USA TODAY. “If I open the doors of my house to you, I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.”

Johnson’s chief memory of the visit is seeing pictures of Ehlinger with the father he lost at 15 to heart arrhythmia in a triathlon.

“Dang,” Johnson remembered thinking. “His dad’s not here. He’s the man of the house.”

Ehlinger, aware Johnson never knew his father, said that perspectiv­e captures perfectly why he admires his now former teammate.

“He comes from obviously way harder times than I do and he can care for me and have respect for my story even (so),” Ehlinger said. “That’s kind of our relationsh­ip in a nutshell.”

At pro day, as Ehlinger approached Johnson asking where G’Amir’s pacifier was, the two revealed another facet to their relationsh­ip: Ehlinger is Johnson’s kids’ godfather. Each smiles as G’Amir starts to reach for things and 2-monthold daughter Milani more readily spots activity across the room. Johnson juggles draft prep with parenting.

“Nothing I didn’t sign up for,” he said. “I can handle it.”

He is eager to prove his NFL worth in order to help provide for the two of them. He also plans on completing his last few credits at Texas to earn a coaching degree, and he wants later to open a sports bar and establish a YMCA where NFL players will mentor inner city kids like he once was.

But first, Johnson looks toward this week’s draft. The faces staring up from his “Who I Do It For” towel leave him anxious to know from where and how he’ll support each. They also remind him his journey encompasse­s more than just where he’s headed.

“I take pride in my story and where I come from,” he said. “Everything I done ever been through adds fuel to the fire.”

 ??  ?? Although Gary Johnson’s guardian talks about the linebacker’s “life full of setbacks,” the former Texas Longhorn says, “It’s not really a sad story. It’s my life. If you know me, you know me.”
KIRBY LEE/ USA TODAY SPORTS
Although Gary Johnson’s guardian talks about the linebacker’s “life full of setbacks,” the former Texas Longhorn says, “It’s not really a sad story. It’s my life. If you know me, you know me.” KIRBY LEE/ USA TODAY SPORTS

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