It's also one admired by those
boys, the eldest of whom play basketball at Purdue, Terone now a senior and Te'Ron, who goes by Ronnie, a sophomore.
"I feel like she's a hero," Ronnie
Johnson said. "That was a pretty
hard thing to do, raise three kids
while he was gone and she was able
to do it. She just grinded it out. She
made the best of it.
"She basically made us into
grown men."
Tom Campbell
Terone and Ronnie Johnson would mangle hangers and hook them to doorways
to serve as basketball rims as kids, a rolled-up sock serving as a ball. They have
much better set-up now, entering their second season playing alongside each
other for Purdue in Mackey Arena.
28
IllustrateD volume 24, issue 2
A heavy responsibility
As an 8-year-old kid, Terone
Johnson really couldn't grasp the
severity of what was happening.
He knew his dad had been arrested, was in jail and could stay there
for awhile.
But that didn't really click until
he was standing in a court room
during a sentencing hearing. Then
he heard 14 years.
And he broke.
"The day when he got sentenced,
I just felt like everything was over,"
Terone Jr. said. "He was around for
the first couple years and then, all
of a sudden, he was just snatched
from our lives. Being boys, that was
something big for us."
He sobbed.
But he wasn't inconsolable.
He found solace in older cousin Davin Pearson, who reassured
Terone that the years would go by
quickly, and, no matter what, he'd
be there for him as another brother.
He found comfort in Rona, who
"instilled in me that we were going
to be OK."
He found resolve in Terone Sr.,
who spoke with his oldest son on
the phone the day after the hearing
f
