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Hall of Fame Coach Glenn Johnson has been an awesome support and blessing for over 40 years to the community and state. Now he is battling cancer and needs tremendous support during this challenging time. Like never before he is in need of financial and in home assistance. Let's show him how much we love and appreciate him for all he has done for us. Let's fund him until every need is met and bless him with an abundance of overflow.
Glenn Johnson*
Coaching to Win in Life
by Jessica Bartter
When the great Grambling Coach Eddie Robinson died in 2007, many believed an era in football that stresses life’s victories off the field and textbooks over playbooks, died as well. But one need look no further than south side Chicago at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy for a shining star that glimmers with the teachings of Coach Robinson and the success of making boys into responsible, invested men. At Dunbar, another man who simply goes by “Coach” can be found fathering, disciplining and teaching his players – and oh yes, coaching a little football too. His name is Glenn Johnson.
Glenn Johnson is a retired Chicago Public School teacher. He was named Chicago’s Teacher of the Year in 1987 by the Blum-Kovler Foundation. By any standard, he has had a wonderful career as an educator, administrator and high school football coach capped off in 2009 with an induction into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame. But Coach Johnson is still hard at work well into his 60s. Most who know Johnson figure he will never retire. Former colleague Tom Kowalski, says “Football, particularly chasing perfect offensive sets, is his passion in life. Sure he likes a good movie, is a budding historian and will listen to his collection of old Motown songs on his iPod, but it is just to pass time until he can be back on the football field trying to orchestrate the perfect running game.”
Six days a week, he can be found in Dunbar’s dark, dingy locker room. In the center of this dank basement setting is a large area with spray painted dots on a dirty cement floor where Johnson’s football players bounce around following different patterns working on their quickness and agility. Strength training is done in a caged room off to the side where a universal machine from the 1980s supplements a variety of free weights, most donated from William Fremd High School, an affluent suburban high school whose coaches, Mike Donatucci and Eric Wenkowski, were kind enough to think of Dunbar and Johnson when they were redesigning and restocking their own weight room. Johnson’s elongated office sits right outside the varsity locker room, a large, separate area that doubles as a study hall, nap area and equipment room. Johnson teaches his athletes to respect the locker room because he tries to model the small things that one of his heroes and mentors, Eddie Robinson, taught the football team at Grambling State.
Coach Johnson may not know his win-loss record but he is no stranger to victory. With league, city and state championships under his belt in different sports at different schools, Johnson is more concerned with the person he builds than the wins he accumulates. He first started changing lives in Chicago at Carver High School where he established the football program in 1971. He moved to South Shore High in 1976 and coached the girls track team to a state championship in 1981 before returning to the gridiron at Dunbar in 1988. That is 39 years of coaching – 22 with the Mighty Men of Dunbar. It is obvious his tenure is long with one glimpse into his messy office. Johnson has turned it into somewhat of a shrine to all the lives he’s touched, because, as he would argue, they’ve touched him. Around the office hang pictures of many former Dunbar athletes who went on to lead successful lives. The biggest space is reserved for Rausell “Rocky” Harvey, who broke Illinois High School State records in 1997 rushing for over 2,500 yards, averaging 15.3 yards per carry and scoring over 40 touchdowns. Harvey, who later went on to star at the University of Illinois will tell you that the only person who could stop him in his junior and senior years was Coach, who routinely took him out of games when a victory was in hand, sometimes as early as the first quarter. His office walls also include letters hanging from restaurants and hotels the team has visited that talk about how wonderful it was to host his team. It is these precious items covering his walls that make him feel more successful than any of his trophies and plaques.
Kowalski worked alongside Johnson for five years beginning in 2002 – the same year the Mighty Men won the City Championship. Kowalski remarked, “What amazed me most about working with Coach was the daily stream of former players who stopped in to see him. Often, they came back to show off – a new job or promotion at work, a newborn baby, or a brand new college degree. All the conversations were essentially the same: ‘Thanks, Coach for keeping me off the streets and treating me like a man.’ Mind you,” Kowalski says, “this wasn’t just one player; this was an everyday occurrence for five straight years.”
For years Coach Johnson has pulled together a football team by trying to out-recruit the Black Gangster Disciples, the prominent street gang on whose turf Dunbar sits. Many of his student-athletes come from the notoriously violent Englewood neighborhood and have to take multiple buses in order to get to school each day. Dunbar sometimes is little more than a safe haven for students to get a couple of warm meals. Johnson even had to wake one of his players off a bench one summer morning for practice after the youngster was forced to live on the streets. Once Johnson gets them on the field, he focuses on building their character and encouraging them to plan for college. He even opens the school on Saturdays to serve his players with a safe alternative to the streets.
The Dunbar Academy only sends about half of their general student body to college, many to Chicago City Colleges where they pursue an associate’s degree. Kowalski says, “Many others join the armed forces while some find themselves on the street, looking for jobs in a sluggish economy. But football players at Dunbar generally go to college thanks to Johnson’s lessons and encouragement. Some go off to school to continue their athletic careers; many go simply to study because Johnson has ingrained education as a vital component of their life.”
Johnson built Dunbar into quite the powerhouse in the 1990s but the better his team got, the more he searched for tougher opponents. He would routinely take his teams to Memphis or Dayton or anywhere else to have the Mighty Men compete against the best in the land. And often they prevailed. Johnson recognized the value in having his team travel for a number of reasons. The trips helped his teams bond; the new locales were often the first out-of-state trips for many of his adolescents; the new cities presented educational opportunities; and the new sights expanded his players’ horizons. Kowalski said, “Whenever a Dunbar team visits a place they have never been before, Johnson arranges a lesson for the boys. They attended museums in Memphis, learned the history of Dayton and now know that Geneseo, Illinois was a stop along the Underground Railroad. Football, to Coach Johnson, is about much more than a game.”
Just like the disciples of Eddie Robinson, former players have sent their sons to play for their beloved former coach, Johnson. In 2000, Johnson’s starting quarterback, Keith Roberson, was commuting one hour and 15 minutes on a train and two buses daily just to play for Johnson who had coached his father at Carver High in 1974.
Kowalski says, “Glenn Johnson is so much more than a football coach – even if he will never admit it. ‘Coach’ – the only name he really responds to – is a hero. A true to life, real American hero.”
Glenn Johnson*
Coaching to Win in Life
by Jessica Bartter
When the great Grambling Coach Eddie Robinson died in 2007, many believed an era in football that stresses life’s victories off the field and textbooks over playbooks, died as well. But one need look no further than south side Chicago at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy for a shining star that glimmers with the teachings of Coach Robinson and the success of making boys into responsible, invested men. At Dunbar, another man who simply goes by “Coach” can be found fathering, disciplining and teaching his players – and oh yes, coaching a little football too. His name is Glenn Johnson.
Glenn Johnson is a retired Chicago Public School teacher. He was named Chicago’s Teacher of the Year in 1987 by the Blum-Kovler Foundation. By any standard, he has had a wonderful career as an educator, administrator and high school football coach capped off in 2009 with an induction into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame. But Coach Johnson is still hard at work well into his 60s. Most who know Johnson figure he will never retire. Former colleague Tom Kowalski, says “Football, particularly chasing perfect offensive sets, is his passion in life. Sure he likes a good movie, is a budding historian and will listen to his collection of old Motown songs on his iPod, but it is just to pass time until he can be back on the football field trying to orchestrate the perfect running game.”
Six days a week, he can be found in Dunbar’s dark, dingy locker room. In the center of this dank basement setting is a large area with spray painted dots on a dirty cement floor where Johnson’s football players bounce around following different patterns working on their quickness and agility. Strength training is done in a caged room off to the side where a universal machine from the 1980s supplements a variety of free weights, most donated from William Fremd High School, an affluent suburban high school whose coaches, Mike Donatucci and Eric Wenkowski, were kind enough to think of Dunbar and Johnson when they were redesigning and restocking their own weight room. Johnson’s elongated office sits right outside the varsity locker room, a large, separate area that doubles as a study hall, nap area and equipment room. Johnson teaches his athletes to respect the locker room because he tries to model the small things that one of his heroes and mentors, Eddie Robinson, taught the football team at Grambling State.
Coach Johnson may not know his win-loss record but he is no stranger to victory. With league, city and state championships under his belt in different sports at different schools, Johnson is more concerned with the person he builds than the wins he accumulates. He first started changing lives in Chicago at Carver High School where he established the football program in 1971. He moved to South Shore High in 1976 and coached the girls track team to a state championship in 1981 before returning to the gridiron at Dunbar in 1988. That is 39 years of coaching – 22 with the Mighty Men of Dunbar. It is obvious his tenure is long with one glimpse into his messy office. Johnson has turned it into somewhat of a shrine to all the lives he’s touched, because, as he would argue, they’ve touched him. Around the office hang pictures of many former Dunbar athletes who went on to lead successful lives. The biggest space is reserved for Rausell “Rocky” Harvey, who broke Illinois High School State records in 1997 rushing for over 2,500 yards, averaging 15.3 yards per carry and scoring over 40 touchdowns. Harvey, who later went on to star at the University of Illinois will tell you that the only person who could stop him in his junior and senior years was Coach, who routinely took him out of games when a victory was in hand, sometimes as early as the first quarter. His office walls also include letters hanging from restaurants and hotels the team has visited that talk about how wonderful it was to host his team. It is these precious items covering his walls that make him feel more successful than any of his trophies and plaques.
Kowalski worked alongside Johnson for five years beginning in 2002 – the same year the Mighty Men won the City Championship. Kowalski remarked, “What amazed me most about working with Coach was the daily stream of former players who stopped in to see him. Often, they came back to show off – a new job or promotion at work, a newborn baby, or a brand new college degree. All the conversations were essentially the same: ‘Thanks, Coach for keeping me off the streets and treating me like a man.’ Mind you,” Kowalski says, “this wasn’t just one player; this was an everyday occurrence for five straight years.”
For years Coach Johnson has pulled together a football team by trying to out-recruit the Black Gangster Disciples, the prominent street gang on whose turf Dunbar sits. Many of his student-athletes come from the notoriously violent Englewood neighborhood and have to take multiple buses in order to get to school each day. Dunbar sometimes is little more than a safe haven for students to get a couple of warm meals. Johnson even had to wake one of his players off a bench one summer morning for practice after the youngster was forced to live on the streets. Once Johnson gets them on the field, he focuses on building their character and encouraging them to plan for college. He even opens the school on Saturdays to serve his players with a safe alternative to the streets.
The Dunbar Academy only sends about half of their general student body to college, many to Chicago City Colleges where they pursue an associate’s degree. Kowalski says, “Many others join the armed forces while some find themselves on the street, looking for jobs in a sluggish economy. But football players at Dunbar generally go to college thanks to Johnson’s lessons and encouragement. Some go off to school to continue their athletic careers; many go simply to study because Johnson has ingrained education as a vital component of their life.”
Johnson built Dunbar into quite the powerhouse in the 1990s but the better his team got, the more he searched for tougher opponents. He would routinely take his teams to Memphis or Dayton or anywhere else to have the Mighty Men compete against the best in the land. And often they prevailed. Johnson recognized the value in having his team travel for a number of reasons. The trips helped his teams bond; the new locales were often the first out-of-state trips for many of his adolescents; the new cities presented educational opportunities; and the new sights expanded his players’ horizons. Kowalski said, “Whenever a Dunbar team visits a place they have never been before, Johnson arranges a lesson for the boys. They attended museums in Memphis, learned the history of Dayton and now know that Geneseo, Illinois was a stop along the Underground Railroad. Football, to Coach Johnson, is about much more than a game.”
Just like the disciples of Eddie Robinson, former players have sent their sons to play for their beloved former coach, Johnson. In 2000, Johnson’s starting quarterback, Keith Roberson, was commuting one hour and 15 minutes on a train and two buses daily just to play for Johnson who had coached his father at Carver High in 1974.
Kowalski says, “Glenn Johnson is so much more than a football coach – even if he will never admit it. ‘Coach’ – the only name he really responds to – is a hero. A true to life, real American hero.”