ISU’s Johnson helps kids back home

By Rob Gray, Correspondent

AMES - Leonard Johnson strode out of church last Sunday and scanned the skies.

It didn't look good. Rain begin falling in his hometown of Clearwater, Fla., and streamed from the sky for hours, putting his plans in peril.

“It rained from like 12 to 3:30 or 4, so I didn't know how big it was going to be,” said Iowa State's preseason All-Big 12 cornerback. “But like they say, God works in mysterious ways. If you've got your mind set on something positive for the community there's no barrier that can stop that thing from happening.”

That thing - the annual C&C Football Camp last Sunday featuring Johnson, Cyclone teammates Jeremiah George, Jarvis West and other area FBS players - was the brainchild of Johnson's mother, Schenique.

The response in Clearwater's North Greenwood community proved staggering. More than 250 kids ages 6 to 17 turned out and tuned in for lessons on football, giving and life.

“My high school coach, he's been coaching for 37 years and he said he's never seen anything like this happen before,” said Johnson, projected by NFLDraftScout.com as a third-round pick in 2012. “So this was big for the community.”

It's big for him, too.

“People in my city love me, man,” Johnson said. “There are not too many positive people, not too many people who have made it in my city. So for my mom to think of this camp - it was a good thing. She knows (ISU training) camp is hard. She knows the stuff that we go through because I tell her. She's like my best friend. She always does something to send me back to Iowa on a positive note.”

Johnson's success in far-off Ames provides inspiration in neighborhood classrooms and locker rooms. His story resonates from street corners to prison cells.

“I know about five to six close friends that gave their life away to the system - they're spending life sentences and they're from 18 to 22,” Johnson said. “The biggest thing is to know even though they're serving life in prison, they still reach out to my mom and my mom works for the (Pinellas County) sheriff's department. So whenever they see her inside the courtroom or inside the jail, they say, ‘Miss Harris, I know I'm going to go down. I'm doing life right now, they're going to send me away, but just tell L.J. I believe in him and just keep his head up.' That's a big thing, to know that somebody is going to serve the rest of his life behind bars but he's still holding onto something outside? That's big. I use that all for motivation.”

That, in turn, motivates others.

Johnson's mother and her husband, Charles, stress that reciprocal relationship.

“We lived right in the midst of everything so my husband and I, we kind of gave him the guidance that he needed and he stuck to what we said,” Schenique said. “It could have been easy for him to say, ‘Forget all this. I can do whatever,' because he was exposed to people selling drugs - not that we did - but he was exposed to that. He was exposed to hearing that somebody just got shot, or all the different things, people running back and forth in this community. He's seen a lot. But our goal was: ‘You don't have to become what you see. You have to create what you want.'”

So Johnson continues to create, building bridges for himself and for his team.

For his family, friends and wide-eyed youths - to whom he's become a hometown hero.

“My mom did a good job of raising me,” Johnson said. “I ran the streets just like everyone does from back home, but at night it's really, ‘Are you going back to a stable home? Are you going back to a home with structure in it?'”

Johnson always did, thanks to his mom.

“That's my girl, man,” he said. “I love her.”

As for the camp she helped create?

“Kids are still knocking on the door: ‘Miss Schenique, can I sign up for next year's camp?'” Harris said. “We're going to get ready.”

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