University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Johnson Stays Home to Lead Young Heels
September 24, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Sept. 24, 2002
by Adam Lucas, Tar Heel Monthly
As a Morehead Scholar, Will Johnson had the chance to travel almost anywhere in the world in the summer before his senior year at the University of North Carolina.
He chose Chapel Hill.
Recipients of the Morehead, the most prestigious academic award on the Carolina campus, participate in a bevy of summer enrichment programs designed to foster leadership and provide real-world life experience. The summer before a student's senior year is devoted to travel, with some encounters including trips to Iceland or South Africa.
Johnson, a senior from Hickory, decided his travel could wait. Instead, he chose to remain in Chapel Hill throughout the summer. By day, he worked at the various basketball camps that passed through the Smith Center and assisted in the athletics ticket office. By night, he was a one-man basketball league organizer, responsible for arranging the nightly pickup games between current Tar Heels, the incoming freshmen, and alums like Shammond Williams, Antawn Jamison, and Ed Cota who wanted to get some practice at their alma mater.
""I deferred [the travel program] because I wanted to be here and be with the team and have a chance to be in the gym," Johnson said. "I definitely think it was the right decision."
On most evenings, Johnson was the last one to leave the Smith Center. While other players were heading back to their cars, he always seemed to have a few more free throws to shoot or a few more jumpers to practice. Quietly, he has turned into one of the most consistent outside shooters on the team. In 2001-02, his 43 percent three-point shooting was tied for the best on the squad among players in the regular rotation.
"He does the little things that you appreciate as a coach," Matt Doherty said. "He's also a very good outside shooter. He's a solid team player, but he's also capable of scoring."
Johnson, an all-state soccer and basketball player in high school, has always had a way of surprising people. Two summers ago, he played in the well-respected Dyckman League in Harlem, which annually draws some of the top playground players in New York City in addition to several Division I competitors. He was also probably the only participant who spent his days interning at Morgan Stanley.
Whether in Harlem or Durham, Johnson knows that on a high-level basketball court, initial reactions to a red-headed kid from Hickory who looks more like a fraternity president than a basketball player are suspicious. Can he play? Is he any good? Why is he here? It's those questions that prompt him to spend those long nights at the Smith Center.
"It's kind of a necessary evil, because it keeps me going," he said. "It makes me angry, but I turn that anger into going down to the gym and working out. People have done that to me ever since I was in high school. I've got one more year to keep proving people wrong, and hopefully I can continue to do that."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com
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