Johnson earns All-American honors

BATON ROUGE, LA — Southern’s Brian Johnson had one hell of a meet. In the four-day 2002 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field National Championships hosted by LSU, Johnson propelled the Jaguars to a 24th place tie with Notre Dame and Princeton with his performances.
Johnson, who came into the Championships as the season leader in the long jump, finished third on Wednesday in the long jump, falling to Walter Davis of LSU (champ) and Randy Lewis of Wichita State. This marks the second consecutive season Brian finished third.
But the surprise for Southern came in the 100- meters as Johnson finished fifth, with a time of 10.46 seconds. The finals of the 100-meters was run on LSU’s sprint track in the center of the stadium, causing the athletes to run into a +3.4 headwind, in the opposite direction all of the preliminary heats were run.
“For Brian to be able to do what he did against that type of competition, is a tribute to how hard we worked to get him ready,” said Southern track and field coach Johnny Thomas. “Noon in the world gave him a chance in the 100, and he ended up fifth.”
The third and fifth place finishes now give Brian Johnson three All-American track honors in only two seasons of running track part-time. Brian is a member of the Southern University basketball team.
“There were 108 teams at this meet, and for us to finish tied for 24th says a lot. 82 teams finished behind us, and 35 teams did not even score.”
Johnson was left out of The Advocate’s “Louisiana Connection” section all week, and was even said not to have qualified for the finals, according to Saturday’s Morning Advocate, written by an Advocate sportswriter covering the meet.
Next up for Thomas and Johnson are the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships, June 21-23, at Cobb Track & Angell Field, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.