Ozzy-loving, soccer-living coach hits milestone

April 29, 2005

JEREMIAH BARTZ/ Frontiersman sports editor

PALMER - When it comes to Jeremy Johnson, there are some pretty safe bets.

More often than not, Johnson will be wearing one of his 75 different Ozzy Osbourne T-shirts. His dog Kiska is usually at his side. And the sport of soccer somehow plays into his day - every day.

But when he returned to Alaska, after spending time at Montana State-Bozeman and Spokane Falls Community College in Spokane, Wash., who knew what Johnson would be doing in 11 years?

Johnson didn't.

The answer - Johnson would be doing the same thing he started 11 years ago - coaching the Colony High School boys soccer team. And now after more than a decade of roaming the sideline of Colony High School Field, Johnson has reached a point in his career matched by only two other coaches in the state of Alaska. Tuesday, with a 4-0 victory over South Anchorage at CHS, Johnson earned his 100th career victory.

Johnson said Juneau-Douglas head coach Gary Lenhart and former Chugiak mentor Ed Blahouse were the only two coaches to be included in the 100-win club for Alaska boys prep soccer. Now there are three.

After graduating from Palmer High School, where he was a standout on the Moose soccer squad, Johnson went to MSU and kicked for the Bobcat football team for a year, then transferred to Spokane Falls to play soccer.

Johnson returned to Alaska two years after graduation, continued to take classes locally and looked for a job, mainly to appease his father. His mother, Sandi, a longtime head coach of the Moose girls squad and an English teacher at PHS, suggested he drop an application off at Colony, where there was an opening for a junior varsity soccer coach. So Johnson thought, if he needed to get a job, why not get paid to coach a sport he loved?

When Johnson applied for a position in the Knight soccer program, the team didn't even have a varsity coach. So the Knights took a gamble on the long-haired Ozzy-loving and soccer-living Johnson, who was just two years out of high school. Jack Forrester and Rick Luthi both were administrators at Colony and teachers of Johnson in the past. They, and Doug Bean, then the activities director at CHS, decided to give Johnson the opportunity.

"He looked like a typical soccer player, the soccer players I remembered watching when I was growing up," Bean said. "They all had that long hair like Jeremy. They were all wiry. They had that personality, the energy, the fire."

Bean said he knew Johnson from hockey, coached against him in football and had no problem taking a gamble on Johnson, even though he was only two years removed from his high school career.

"People could be skeptical when you get a young kid like that - the long hair and fresh out of school. But I just had this gut feeling," Bean said. "He had no hidden agenda. It was just, 'let's play soccer, and I'm going to build a winning program'."

In his first season at Colony, Johnson was so fresh out of school, he lined up against former teammates and even coached a player at Colony he played with at Palmer. When Johnson made his coaching debut in 1995, the Palmer senior class included former teammates such as Daryl McKenzie and Mark Horvath, who were freshman with the Moose during Johnson's senior year.

"It was pretty weird coaching against Daryl and Mark. I kind of guided them along when I was a senior. You turn around and they're studs trying to win a state championship," Johnson said.

And Palmer did win the state championship that year. During the season, the Moose tied Colony 0-0 in Johnson's first game against his alma matter and beat the Knights, with a McKenzie goal, in the next game. And it's something that Johnson and McKenzie still talk about. Johnson said McKenzie always has to remind him, Palmer beat Colony, and Palmer won the state championship that season.

"I was really in limbo. I grew up hating Wasilla, and then Colony came around and I didn't want anything to do with them. I had a love for my school, and I wanted them to be successful," Johnson said. "Then I came to Colony, and it was like, 'who's this Palmer guy?' All I had was a bunch of blue (clothes). I kind of stood out."

Johnson not only had to deal with facing his former teammates, but coaching a former teammate. Dennis Gum had played hockey with Johnson at Palmer before transferring to Colony.

"It's one of those things we had to discuss," Johnson said. "I have to be the coach. You have to be the player. Dennis did a great job."

Johnson said he has always been blessed with good players during his run with the Knights, but also credits his coaching support system of the past - his mom, his high school coach, Rich Livingston, and Danny Reynolds, his coach at the youth soccer level.

Johnson said Livingston was the best motivator he has ever seen, and Reynolds brought him to a new level in terms of skills, as both a player and a coach. Johnson also credits his grandfather, Willie Jenkins, as a primary influence in his life. Jenkins has been involved in athletics in some capacity at Minnechaug High School in Wilbraham, Mass., since the school opened. And the dedication to athletics seemed to trickle down to his grandson. Johnson said he still calls his grandfather after every one of his games.

Even though Johnson was hoping to get his 100th win against Wasilla and Warrior head coach Blake Livingston, another Palmer graduate, his 100th win turned out to be even more special for the entire Johnson family.

Mike Montgomery, the head coach of the South boys team, put together a winning streak that is seen as untouchable while coaching the Service girls. That streak was interrupted by a Palmer girls team coached by his mother.

"That's what made this win really sweet," Johnson said after his 100th victory. "He won like 150 straight games or something. In the first big soccer game Palmer ever played in, my mom's team tied them 1-1. It was phenomenal.

"This will be really good for my mom," Johnson added. "And I will feel really good about calling her tomorrow and saying, guess what?"

But family is not the only influence that creeps into his coaching. As many could expect, a coach barely into his 20s may bring something different, something unorthodox, to his tactics.

And Johnson does.

For those who know Johnson, or even barely know Johnson, they see he has a slight interest in a certain musical artist. Like his passion for soccer, Johnson has the same enthusiasm when it comes to his favorite musician - Ozzy. And Johnson found a way to bring the man he has seen 39 times in concert to soccer. He talks about Ozzy with his players. He includes Ozzy in his motivational speeches.

He even bet his team one season he could wear a different Ozzy T-shirt each day. He did. He has 75 Ozzy shirts.

Johnson also incorporated Ozzy into the Colony boys soccer logo. A fellow Palmer graduate, Mike Kirkpatrick, is now a graphic designer and drew up a little Ozzy-influenced Knight soccer insignia for Colony soccer T-shirts and sweatshirts. Nathan Chud, a former player of Johnson's, thanked him during a season-ending banquet for teaching the team so much about soccer and even more about Ozzy.

But whether it's his passion for soccer, love for Ozzy, or both, Johnson has made it to where it's easy to bet the Knights will be competing for the region championship each season.

He has a 100-41-19 record and has guided the Knights to region championships in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. He led Colony to a state crown in 2001. The Knights have not finished out of the top three in the region in nearly a decade.

Once he notched his 100th win, Johnson didn't even try to hold in his excitement.

"It feels excellent. It feels really, really good," Johnson said.

Because 11 years ago, who new?

"To be honest, I really did (think he would be around this long)," Bean said. "You don't find many people this energetic willing to put in this massive amount of hours for $2,000 a year."

But every spring, Johnson - who also works at the Palmer Ice Arena and is the disc jockey for the midnight to 6 a.m. shift every Saturday night on KWHL - keeps coming back.

"I always had aspirations to do something great, but you figure, oh this next year's team is going to be so great," Johnson said. "Then after a while, you look forward to it every spring. I can't wait to be back and hang out with these guys. I am around them pretty much every single day expect Sunday. And that's because you can't require them to be here on Sunday. I pretty much require them to be here every other day, because I love it."

He has brought a Blizzard of Oz to Knight soccer, and there has been No More Tears as he's taken Colony Over the Mountain.

When it comes to soccer, Johnson just has the Desire.