Football
Favorite athlete: DeSean Jackson
Favorite team: Michigan Wolverines Football and Basketball
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the District One championship during my senior year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: On my way back to the offensive huddle after a play last year, I tripped on my own shoelace and fell in front of the entire home crowd and sideline.
Music on iPod: Mostly Rap, but I have everything from the Beatles to Nirvana.
Future plans: Attend college and major in Actuarial Science.
Words to live by: “With hard work and perseverance, you can accomplish your goals.”
One goal before turning 30: Graduate with my degree and have a successful career in place.
One thing people don’t know about me: I didn’t begin playing football until eighth grade. I used to just care about my schoolwork, but now I realize I couldn’t live without either.”
By Mary Jane Souder
Mark Schmidt is only half kidding when – while talking about Dan Johnson – the Neshaminy coach suggests that his senior lineman “can manage my money later on.”
Johnson, it turns out, has a knack for numbers, and a career in the financial field is very realistic for a young man who excels on the gridiron but keeps it in perspective.
“I’m going to have a life after football, and that’s what I have to prepare for,” he said. “Academics was always my calling card, and football came after that.”
Johnson’s academic resume speaks for itself. He is ranked in the top five percent of his class and had a 4.85 grade point average at the end of the first marking period. His schedule includes five AP classes this year.
“Academically, he’s off the charts,” Schmidt said. “He’s one of the best math students in the school – they say he’s one of the better ones in the county.”
Johnson has been asked to be a ‘mathlete’ when the season is over, and he was the team math tutor in the offseason, but don’t be fooled into thinking that football would be little more than an afterthought to Johnson.
He is equally committed to excellence on the gridiron and is a key member of an offensive line that has allowed the Redskins to accumulate close to 5,000 yards of total offense.
“It starts with coaching,” Johnson said. “They give us a good game plan every single week for each team that we’re playing.”
The senior guard is quick to point out that it’s a team effort on the offensive line where he is joined by John Koch, Matt Wynne, Mike Palmer and Hunter Kelly. Koch, Palmer and Johnson are two-year starters.
“We’ve all jelled together this year, and it’s turned out great,” Johnson said. “John Koch makes a lot of the calls, and everyone else does a great job after that.
“The key to a great line is making sure everyone is on the same page, everyone knows what their responsibility is and everyone goes as hard as they can every single play. It’s all about effort and determination, and I definitely think our offensive line has that in bunches.”
The offensive line has spent the season creating holes for running back D’Andre Pollard. The junior star has close to 2,800 yards on the ground.
“Having D’Andre makes an offensive line’s job a lot easier because you know when you make a small hole, any hole that D’Andre is able to find it and get through it and get yards,” Johnson said. “That’s the best part about having a back like D’Andre.”
Johnson, according to his coach, has been coming on strong since midway through last season.
“He realized what he could do,” Schmidt said. “He was always a part of the team. He played a little jayvee, but last year he turned it up a little bit.
“This year he was really a guy we were counting on to be pretty darn good, and it worked out.”
Johnson began the year rotating in on the defensive line as well but eventually became a fulltime player on both sides of the football.
“The more he played, the better he got,” Schmidt said. “He’s a little undersized but has great leverage, great technique. He’s just really playing well.”
Beyond the skills he brings to the gridiron, Johnson also brings the intangibles coaches value.
“He always has a smile on his face, he’s always on time, and he always gives you nothing but a full day’s work,” Schmidt said. “He really got in the weight room and got stronger.
“He just really became a guy we could count on. He was one of those core players you plug into your team and say, ‘Hey, you have to be one of these guys,’ and he’s been all that and more.”
There’s no mistaking Johnson’s immense pride when the team’s District One 4A championship comes up in conversation.
“This season has been absolutely amazing,” he said. “Going into this year, I – as a player at Neshaminy – hadn’t put anything up on the banner yet.
“We have a banner in the gym, and you only put something on the banner if you win the SOL, win the district championship, so finally, this year we were able to accomplish one of our goals and put something on the banner – a district championship. It meant so much, and we’re not done yet.”
The Redskins will be playing in the Eastern Final against St. Joe’s Prep on Saturday, one win away from playing in the state championship game. It’s not a spot many would have projected they would find themselves in after they fell to Pennsbury 31-3 in the final regular season game.
“That was a tough week, but it was an eye-opening week,” Johnson said. “We were riding pretty high going into that game, but that brought us back down to earth. It taught us that you can’t just take the ride. You have to work hard every single day in practice. You can’t just expect it to come.”
Since that loss, the Redskins have won four straight district games by an average margin of close to 30 points.
“It’s hard to say a loss is a blessing, but it sure seems that way because since then we have been playing a lot better,” Johnson said. “The practices have been great, and the games have showed that the practices have paid off.”
Johnson got his introduction to football at an early age playing flag football, but he didn’t play his first contact football until eighth grade.
“I loved it ever since,” he said. “I actually started off as a tight end in eighth grade because I always practiced catching the ball with my dad.”
When he arrived in high school, he was moved to the offensive line, and it was a natural fit.
Whether Johnson continues his career at the collegiate level remains to be seen.
“I’m debating a couple of things,” he said. “I’m looking into a couple of schools for academics, and I’ve gotten interest from a couple of schools for football, so I’m just keeping my options open until the season is over and then I’ll explore my options in depth.
“A school’s academic prestige and things along those line are probably the most important thing to me because I definitely know that I have to have a career after football.”
Johnson is a member of the National Honor Society, and in the three summers preceding the most recent one, he went on mission trips with his church, the first two to North Carolina and the third to Altoona.
“The mission trips put a lot of things in perspective for me,” he said. “It made me appreciate everything I have in my life and what my parents provide for me. Those trips most of all humbled me.”
Johnson, who plans to major in Actuarial Sciences, has applied to the University of Pennsylvania and admits he has loved Michigan since he was a youngster. Penn State is also on his radar.
“The very high Division 3 schools are all over him, throwing academic money that he can acquire from those really good schools,” Schmidt said. “It’s terrific. He’s weighing all of that right now – what am I going to do here? Whatever he gets, he deserves.”
