University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Johnson Begins College Transition
June 18, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
June 18, 2012
Incoming Tar Heel basketball freshman Brice Johnson, who arrived on campus this past weekend and will enroll in this week's second session of summer school, is excited about the opportunity to begin playing in the summer pickup games with current and past Tar Heels.
But his father, Herman, says his son's achievements are even more important for another reason: it's the beginning of Brice's college education.
"All along, we wanted Brice to get a chance to go to college," says Herman, who also served as Brice's head basketball coach at Edisto (S.C.) High School in Cordova, S.C. "If an athletic scholarship came along, that would be gravy, but that wasn't our goal when we set out. Our goal was for him to have the chance to get a college education."
As the younger Johnson matured, it became clear he was a talented basketball player who had the chance to play collegiately somewhere. But it wasn't until last July, when he put together several impressive performances on the summer recruiting circuit, that he made himself into a legitimate elite prospect.
Even 12 months later, Johnson doesn't seem overly surprised by his emergence on the national scene. Some of his fellow freshman classmates, like Marcus Paige or J.P. Tokoto, spent multiple years of their high school careers fielding calls from the top college coaches in the country. Paige, for example, actually committed to Carolina more than six months before the Tar Heels began vigorously recruiting Johnson.
But the South Carolina big man says there wasn't a major change that elevated him onto the Carolina radar.
"I played against great competition last summer," he says, "and I feel like I've always understood how to play the game. That helped me play well against some good players, and that's when I started getting more attention."
That attention was drawn because of a combination of factors that give Johnson intriguing potential. He's tall, at 6-foot-9, but also has some athleticism. He's not especially beefy, and will be one of several projects for strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian in the incoming class, but he's also comfortable ranging away from the paint and scoring from other areas on the court.
His father was in the unique position of being able to watch his son develop as both a dad and a coach.
"I have my big men in the gym all the time working on post moves," Herman says. "So he's always been comfortable on the block. But we also had another big kid, so we played Brice outside some of the time because his shot was better than our other big man. We've been working on his shot this summer, and he's been hitting it consistently out to 20 feet."
Of course, hitting 20-footers won't be a consistent requirement for Johnson, at least early in his Tar Heel career. He's likely to spend more time near the basket, so part of his early summer has been spent in the weight room.
"Jonas sent me a workout to do before I left for Carolina," Brice says. "I feel like I'm strong for my size, but I'm not that big muscle-wise, so that's something we'll be working on."
Part of the adjustment will also come away from the court. Brice's mother, Renee, died during his freshman year of high school after a battle with cancer. Since then, Brice and Herman have grown even closer. Initially, basketball was the typical father-son conduit to spend time together and have something in common.
Over the last four years, though, it's become something more important--a means for Brice to earn that long-sought after college education, and for the duo to escape some of the more serious parts of their non-sports life together.
"It's been important for me to be there for the things he and his mom used to do together," says Herman, who is already trying to build his Edisto High schedule around the Carolina schedule so he can see as many games as possible. "That means I needed to be his backbone who went with him places and saw all those AAU tournaments. I love basketball, and he fell in love with basketball. That's been a good outlet for both of us."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter and Facebook.
