Sometimes it is\u00a0hard for athletes to be humble, especially when they are in a position to be stars. But for sophomore Samy Johnson, humility is an everyday routine.<\/p>\n
Johnson, starting running back for the Rockets, began his football career in the fourth grade with Life Champs, which is a youth football league here in Little Rock. Johnson always knew he\u00a0wanted to be a running back, and he has always played that position since he started. \u201cI chose to\u00a0be a running back because I love the feeling of running the ball and knowing that I could score at\u00a0any moment in the game,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
In middle school Johnson went to Christ Lutheran School where he played basketball and track.\u00a0He continued to play football but since Christ Lutheran didn\u2019t have enough players to form a complete team,\u00a0he joined\u00a0the Holy Souls football team.\u00a0\u201cMiddle school helped me mature in athletics and in school and showed me how to become a\u00a0better person,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
Johnson continues to play multiple sports in high school. But he has always felt that football was the main\u00a0sport for him. \u201cAs a kid I always watched football on TV and now it’s so exciting being able to\u00a0actually play football,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
Mr. John Fogleman, the head football coach, has been watching Johnson play since the parochial\u00a0league and isn\u2019t that surprised by Johnson\u2019s success. \u201cYou see early on his success with the\u00a0parochial league and from last year,\u201d said Mr. Fogleman. \u201cHe has got a lot of talent.\u201d\u00a0Johnson has been at the school for only two years, but he has already experienced [our sense of]\u00a0\u00a0brotherhood from the football team. Johnson said, \u201cMy teammates have helped me by\u00a0teaching me how to learn from my mistakes that I make and teaching me the fundamentals of\u00a0how to play my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s friend, sophomore Thomas Staab, isn\u2019t surprised at Johnson\u2019s success either. Staab\u00a0said, \u201cHe was doing the same thing freshman year and he\u2019s only gotten better.\u201d\u00a0Even though he hasn\u2019t known Johnson for that long, senior Orlando Henley has nothing but\u00a0positive things to say about Johnson. \u201cI call him the super sophomore; he does things not too\u00a0many sophomores could do,\u201d said Henley. \u201cHe really impressed me. He is really humble, and he\u00a0gives all of his credit to his lineman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson may only be a sophomore, but he helps out in a big way. \u201cHe is very fast and quick, and\u00a0when there is a big time situation, he is there to help out,\u201d said Henley.<\/p>\n
Mr. Fogleman said Johnson\u2019s work attitude allows him to be good. A lot of people have that work\u00a0ethic, he added, but they don\u2019t know how to use it.<\/p>\n
This past September, Johnson was nominated for the Yarnell\u2019s Sweetest Play on Channel 7 for a\u00a0long run he had against Jonesboro in week three. Johnson said, \u201cI felt pretty excited to know that\u00a0I had one of the best plays in Arkansas.\u201d Unfortunately, he did not win the award but he did feel honored\u00a0to be competing against other top-level performers.<\/p>\n
Staab has also been close with Johnson off the field. Staab said, \u201cI met him last year and I could\u00a0tell he was a great athlete, and off the field he was a really funny and humble guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes it is\u00a0hard for athletes to be humble, especially when they are in a position to be stars. But for sophomore Samy Johnson, humility is an everyday routine. Johnson, starting running back for the Rockets, began his football career in the fourth grade with Life Champs, which is a youth football league here in Little…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":7542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[132,97,196,1],"tags":[143,192],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/DSC_1113.jpg?fit=1024%2C678&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-1Xl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7523"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7596,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions\/7596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}