The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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MAY 2024 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 43 ❱ MICHIGAN RECRUITING NOTEBOOK GPA. Off the field, she wanted to be the best as well. That's what you get when you bring her on the staff." If Kayli's last name calls to mind to one of the most prominent athletes on Mich- igan's roster, it's because she's the older sibling of first-team All-Big Ten and All- America cornerback Will Johnson. Sports is a common theme for the family. Kayli's father, Deon Johnson, a co-founder of Sound Mind Sound Body, played for the Wolverines in the 1990s. Kayli's mother, Kafi Kumasi, is also a Michigan graduate. Johnson competed in track and field at Michigan State and Texas Tech. She won the Big 12 outdoor championship and set a Red Raiders school record in the shot put with a personal-best throw of 17.8 meters (58 feet and 4 ¾ inches) in 2022. Blackwell believes that Johnson's ex- perience as a former collegiate athlete and her personal understanding of the reigning national championship pro- gram through her connection to her brother will be felt immediately in her new role on the recruiting staff. "I think it's a game changer," Black- well said. "Her mom and dad went to Michigan, and Kayli is a former Divi- sion I athlete. She has a lot of experi- ence working in the college ranks, so she understands the whole game. "Then, obviously, her brother is Will. She knows and has been around the camps all her life. She knows all the players. Her daddy and uncle played NFL ball. She gets it. I think she'll be a huge, huge connection for recruits and individuals all across America because she's able to connect with people in dif- ferent ways once she understands who they are and where they're from, which is a wild card in that position." Prior to her appointment at Michi- gan, Johnson served as MSU's director of recruiting communications. She was also on the Rutgers staff, serving as the assistant director of football recruit- ing operations for the 2023 campaign. When she competed on Texas Tech's track and field team, she was a football recruiting and operations intern as well. With her father in such a prominent position on Sound Mind Sound Body, based in Detroit, a premier high school recruiting exposure and development academy, Johnson contributed a lot to the betterment of the organization, including but not limited to the camps that SMSB put on all over Southeast Michigan. "She worked with us in our summer programs, where she was a coordinator while she was in college finishing up her credits," Blackwell said. "She helped organize the camps. She did everything from making graphics and flyers to run- ning check-in. She was always good in- teracting with people. She's the person who you could consider talking to the coaches because she knew them and she was always at all the workouts. "So, she knows everybody. That's the thing that you can't really put a dollar value on. She's a person who can con- nect with people, and everybody knows who she is. She's a person who knows the coach from [Cass] Tech or [Detroit] King or the coach from Chicago or L.A., and they know of her. That helps out a lot. That's the type of thing she did for Sound Mind Sound Body. She's always able to connect with people." Johnson's connections to Michigan's backyard on the recruiting trail because of SMSB are vast, but Blackwell can vi- sualize the broader scope for what she'll bring to the table for the Wolverines. "She'll definitely make sure that's happening," Blackwell said. "That's go- ing to give Michigan an advantage be- cause anybody who's going on campus knows they have someone they can reach out to and connect with. So, that's the most obvious aspect of it. Her dad is one of the co-founders of Sound Mind Sound Body, so that's really a no-brainer. "I'm looking at it from a bigger stand- point beyond that because you're get- ting a person who's connected to De- troit and national. Think about it: If a recruit is on campus and their family is there, she could talk about it from any perspective — her personal [expe- rience] as a Division I athlete, or she could talk about what her brother is do- ing, or she can talk to them firsthand candidly about the experience from a family standpoint on what's it like to be a Wolverine. That's an absolutely phe- nomenal, unique perspective." — Zach Libby Kayli Johnson (far right) was recently named U-M's new director of on-campus recruiting. A Big 12 outdoor track and field champion in the shot put at Texas Tech in 2022, she spent the 2023 sea- son as the assistant director of football recruiting operations at Rutgers. She is pictured with her parents, Deon Johnson and Kafi Kumasi, and her brother, U-M All-American Will Johnson. PHOTO COURTESY KAYLI JOHNSON