By Ben Joravsky
Johnson’s endeavor stems from a lifelong obsession with basketball. “I wasn’t good enough to play on my high school team, but I played all the time,” says Johnson, who grew up on the near west side. “Isiah Thomas, Mark Aguirre, Darrell Walker, Doc Rivers–I’m proud to say I played them all.”
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He graduated from Gordon Tech in 1978, earned a degree in criminal justice at Texas Southern University, and then came home to Chicago, where his mother, Sally Johnson, once an aide to Mayor Washington, owns and operates Chicago Architectural Window, a window-installation company. He started his own security firm and went to work as a bodyguard for former CHA chief Vince Lane. He was a criminal investigator in the CHA’s gang crimes unit when he decided he needed a new career. “I left the CHA in January,” says Johnson. “I was thinking I might go into business with my mom when I read a story about Freddie Cleveland wanting to start a pro league for teenagers. I thought, ‘This sounds right.’ I always wanted to coach. I always wanted to be around the game.”
“He had all these kids coming into the office money in hand, to fill out their applications and pay Freddie his $100 nonrefundable fee,” says Johnson. “Man, he could talk. He said he was going to have his top team play the NBA champions in a $30 million winner-take-all showdown. He said he was going to make a movie–he told my administrative assistant, Valencia Glover, she’d star in it. He had a couple of associates, guys he had grown up with. One of them used to do something for Earth, Wind & Fire. He was good at writing press releases. They got articles in the Sun-Times, the Tribune, even the New York Times.”
The league was reborn with a new name under Johnson’s direction and some financial help from his mother. “I told my son that I’d help him fulfill his dream because I believe in him and I have faith in him,” says Sally Johnson. “This is much different than what Freddie Cleveland was talking about. I don’t even want to talk about that man.”
Mostly, though, his team plays gritty games on dingy courts in Park District field houses. Last week saw the Knights playing a ragtag collection of thirtysomething geezers as part of a seven-team tournament at Gill Park in Uptown. Midway through the second half the Knights’ lead hit 60. “The competition’s not always this bad,” said Johnson as the geezers called time to catch their breath and steady their rubbery legs.
Brandon–who starred at King High School and went on to play at LSU with Shaquille O’Neal–now plays in the Continental Basketball Association. “A CBA scout came to this very gym about a month ago, saw Jamie play, and signed him up,” said Johnson. “Now everybody wants to be like Jamie. They’re all hoping to be discovered.
