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m e n ' s b a s k e t b a l l f e a t u r e : r o n n i e j o h n s o n Growing Up Point guard again acclimating to higher level of play BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com early pick-up games had on him as a player. You see it in his deft passing, his onnie Johnson is listed as being ability to throw darts to open team6-feet tall, 170 pounds. mates before they're actually open. It should be noted that listed meaYou see it in his explosive bursts surements and actual measurements into the lane, quickness years ago are often two very, very different having been his only advantage when things, so each number might be a he grew up. bit generous. You see it in the left-hander's coEither way, the Purdue freshman bra-quick pull-up. When you're small, point guard isn't big in any sense of the last thing you can afford to do is the term. telegraph your intentions. You should have seen him four And you see it when he throws years ago. lay-ups high off the glass over the Then a freshman at North Central out-stretched arms of would-be shotHigh School in Indianapolis, Johnson blockers. was tiny, the polar opposite of his Once Johnson got to North Cenolder brother, Terone, whose physical tral, the point guard talents he'd alstrength has always been advanced, ready begun exhibiting were needed. even now that he's a junior in college. Terone Johnson was a junior that As a freshman in high school, year. Ronnie Johnson was good enough to And in Ronnie Johnson's class play varsity at a traditionally talentwere future major college recruits rich school known for the outstanding D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera (now at lineage of star guards it's produced. Georgetown) and Patrick Ingram But he was just so small, so small (Iowa). he didn't wear his jersey so much as "I think I really developed it in it just sort of orbited him. high school, because I was playThen about 5-5 and maybe 140, ing with my brother and Patrick and the point guard looked like anything D'Vauntes," Ronnie Johnson said. "I but a future blue-chip college rehad to become more of an assist man. cruit in an age where such prospects That was a good thing. I just had to are frequently identified as 14- or find ways to get them open and set 15-year-olds. things up." "If you go back and look at him his Terone Johnson watched his freshman year, it's ridiculous where brother develop, first as his teammate he was," said Terone Johnson, now at North Central, then from afar once his younger brother's teammate at he enrolled at Purdue. Purdue. "He was so small." "I knew he was a good player," But being small — and good — Tom Campbell Terone Johnson says now, "but I just One of Ronnie Johnson's talents is having a touch around the basket. It is a work in didn't see him evolving into a Big Ten sometimes has its advantages. Dating back to the third grade, progress for the freshman, something that will hopefully continue to develop. player. He kind of caught me by surprise Ronnie Johnson grew up playing with as a sophomore, the way he played. Those were the formative stages of his develTerone and older cousin Davin Pearson. That's when I figured he could make that jump." opment into the consummate point guard. "When we were younger, they used to just The biggest reason: Ronnie Johnson's body There are certain characteristics in point beat up on me," Ronnie Johnson said. "It was all came along. guards, such the ability to anticipate, to see things taller guys; I was the smallest one. Playing with With every year following that freshman seahappening before they actually do, that you either my older cousin, we always used to play against son, he filled out that Panthers jersey a little have or you don't. grown-ups." Johnson does, but it was in those pick-up more, thanks in part, he said, to the work of forPlaying against kids at least two years older games from his youth that they were brought to mer North Central strength coach Marc Anderson. and significantly bigger, sometimes even com"Coach A got us right," he said. "You could bear, setting him on a path to accomplish what he peting with full-fledged adults, the diminutive himself might not have foreseen coming in his come in puny, but by the time you'd leave North guard's game was shaped by his surroundings. basketball career, the chance to play at the Big Ten Central, he'd have you where you need to be." Shooting usually wasn't an option. They'd get After a breakout junior season, Ronnie Johnlevel, alongside his brother, no less. blocked or miss so badly they may as well have been. son suddenly started getting interest from major As Ronnie Johnson plays out his freshman seaSo Johnson learned to be a facilitator, turning son as a Boilermaker, you see the impact those colleges. his focus toward setting up others. R 44 • Gold & Black IllustrateD • volume 23, issue 3 GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com