After decorated season, Johnson is offensive line prospect
By Marc David
Gilroy – After five years in the workforce, Clayton Johnson decided to attend Gavilan College.
One of his first classes was weightlifting. When coach John Lango saw the 6-4, 295-pound Johnson, he suggested the former Live Oak student come out for football.
Johnson had not even considered playing football for the Rams. And Lango didn’t know anything about Johnson because he hadn’t played varsity football at Live Oak, or the high school in Lake Forest, Ill., he attended during his senior year.
Still, Johnson thought why not, if he could play on the defensive line. Lango initially agreed to let Johnson play defensive end. But as the football season approached, he asked Johnson if he would rather be a defensive lineman without guaranteed playing time, or an offensive lineman who started.
“He told me I could be a mediocre defensive lineman or a great offensive lineman,” Johnson said. “He said I could start right away on the offensive line. I decided I wanted playing time and to do what was good for the team.”
It turned out to be one of the best decisions Johnson ever made. The sophomore right tackle has already been offered a full scholarship to University of California-Davis. A Division 2 school in the midwest has told him he will be offered a scholarship. And Nevada-Reno, Missouri and Kansas have all expressed interest.
Heady stuff for a young man who didn’t attend college until he was 24 years old, and even then only showed up so he could get the 40 semester units he needed to join the San Jose Police Department.
Johnson is one of the Rams’ co-captains, a leader on a victory-starved team that hosts Mendocino College at 6 pm Saturday at Garcia-Elder Sports Complex.
“They’re all spread and no huddle,” Lango said of the Eagles (1-1). “They throw the ball a lot. We have got to play at a higher level of intensity and execute better offensively and defensively.”
The Rams (0-2) will mix things up this week against the unorthodox Eagles. The coaches are taking long looks at offensive players Justin Sweeney, Mike Ginther, Tim Abbott and Alex Gonzalez in the defensive backfield. And they will need the type of quiet leadership that Johnson offers.
“It’s a matter of us being better motivated,” the soft-spoken Johnson said. “We came out flat the last two games. The freshman look at me. I don’t have to be jumping up and down. I can flip a switch and come out with intensity. The younger guys have trouble with that. We need to come out ready to play, not wait until the second or third quarter.”
Johnson has no problem motivating himself.
“My whole life I have pushed myself,” Johnson said. “I’m a competitor. I don’t really like to settle. I am always pushing myself in athletics and academics. I have never been content to be average in anything I’ve done.”
Academics were never a problem for Johnson, who was an honor student at Live Oak and carries a 3.98 grade-point-average as a criminal justice major at Gavilan. It’s just that he was always an independent thinker and saw himself more in the workforce (he was an account representative at Hewlett-Packard for five years) than as a college student until he learned he needed the credits to become a policeman.
“I am enjoying the moment,” Johnson said. “If you had told me two years ago that I would be nationally recruited, that I would be all-conference and a preseason All-American, I would have laughed at you.”
But Johnson understands what hard work and good genes can do for an individual. He said his father’s cousin is New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady. His father, Darryl Johnson, was a tailback-safety at the University of Minnesota. His uncle, Phil Schneider, was a fullback-linebacker at the University of Washington. He played Pop Warner ball with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Jared Allen. Johnson admits to thinking about playing in the NFL one day.
“I’m not a big rah-rah type of guy,” Johnson said. “But I can turn the switch on when it is needed. As a leader, I need to step up and try something new. Our psyche is a little down. We’ve got to win to keep motivated. We need to beat (Mendocino), not beat ourselves.”
The quiet confidence is always there as Johnson speaks. And why not?
“It’s amazing when you think that this is just his second year playing football,” Lango said. “He’s only going to get better and better. I mean, here’s a kid who didn’t play in high school and was working for five years before he went back to school.”
Johnson has certainly made the most of his opportunity. His Walter Mitty-type story is the stuff dreams are made of. Only this dream is on the verge of really happening.
