The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

College Sports

May 5, 2010

Johnson still par for the court

By Dave Morrison Sports Editor

BEAVER — Concord University golf coach Will Johnson stands an imposing 6-foot-5 and the former West Virginia Conference star post player looks like he could still knock down shots.

Well, on the court.

Johnson will be the first to tell you that as an amateur duffer, he finds the going tough — as do most of us weekend golfers — on the links.

“I love to play,” Johnson said, as he was watching his team finish up its NCAA Division II Atlantic/East Super Regional championship Wednesday at The Resort at Glade Springs’ Cobb Course. “Not that I’m any good at it.

“I’ll go out and hit the ball with these guys but I’m nowhere near their level. These kids are elite players.”

But on the court?

Despite a hip replacement, Johnson, 52, is still large. And in charge.

The former WVIAC star (1977-80) is also an assistant basketball coach at his alma mater.

“No, no, no, that’s where I would work them over,” Johnson said, laughing. “Basketball is not their game. I’ve seen them shooting. These guys are two-handed set-shot shooters. They’ve got no game.”

Which, at least according to one player, isn’t the entire truth.

“He said that?” Ryan Long said. “We’ve been challenging him to play all year. He’s scarred. He won’t do it. He said he’s too old.”

But Johnson said that was his story, and he was sticking to it.

Johnson said he inherited the job as golf coach when Gene Davis retired from the position three years ago when his wife fell ill.

He has former golf standout Darcy Donaldson, who was on the last Mountain Lion regional champion in 2006, as an assistant. And like a good coach, he lets Donaldson do a lot of the instructing.

“But he is a great guy for our team,” Long said. He always puts us first and he is always there to get our spirits up if we have a bad round.”

“What he can’t help us with in golf he makes up for by being there for us,” Emmanuel Charmat said. “We rely on him being around for us and he is always there for us.”

Johnson has a star-studded resume as a basketball player.

He grew up in Cannelton Hollow and went to Cedar Grove in junior high and DuPont in high school.

He starred for Concord in the late 1970s, leading the Mountain Lions to a WVIAC tournament championship in 1979. They lost a three-game series to Wesleyan that kept them from the NAIA national tournament that season.

He started playing golf in college and ended up as a coach of a regional champion.

“I’m just happy for these kids,” Johnson said. “This is what they worked for. This is their time. They came out and worked hard and they have played really well. I’m proud of them.”

But not to proud to dispense a little hoops lesson of push comes to shove?

“Not their sport,” Johnson said, grinning. “I mean, it might get ugly.”

“We’d give him a shot, we like challenges,” said Charmat.

“I don’t play myself, but some of the guys do,” said Ryan Terdik. “We’d give him a go.”

At least one player said he wants no part of the coach. On the court.

“I don’t think so,” freshman Johan Isberg said. “He is twice my size.”

On the course, well that’s a different story.



 

Text Only
College Sports