Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 42) a coach, Johnson says his wife has been the anchor in their home. “Susan has pretty much done more raising of our daughter, Kaitlyn, than I have, but we have a close family. We do a lot of things together, and we always try to take at least one family vacation a year.” Every Christmas, he says, they spend time in North Carolina, where they both have families. And for the past couple of years the Johnsons have gone on cruises. “I enjoyed it more than I thought I would,” he says with a smile, explaining that Susan likes a structured vacation. “My idea of a perfect vacation is you don’t have a plan. I’d go back to North Carolina, back to the mountains. I’d just hang out and fish or play golf or whatever I wanted to do when I got up. That’d be my perfect vacation.” ‘We Blanket the State’ ohnson attributes much of his success as a head coach to being “surrounded by good people. You’ve got to be who you are,” Johnson says. “I’ve had the opportunity to work for some good coaches. You pull and take from each person.” At Georgia Southern, coach Russell had the reputation of being a rough, rugged, even brutal competitor. “He wasn’t at all,” Johnson says. “He was kind of a patsy really. The biggest thing I would take from my time working with coach Russell was how to deal with people. He had this knack — he could find people’s hot switch. It wasn’t out of fear. I think the guys that played for him had a genuine love for the guy.” In spring practice, the coaching staff will work to “get our system in,” Johnson says, and he’ll be looking for players who “want to compete and aren’t afraid to work.” The defense will be similar to returning players, but the offense will be “way different,” he says. Practice will be at a faster pace. “It’ll take a while for those guys to learn the speed at which we practice,” Johnson says. “Once they’re here for a little bit and they become accustomed to the effort and the kind of intensity that we’re looking for, then it just transcends. When the new guys come in, they just fall in and they follow through. This first spring will be interesting.” J Johnson says he intends to build a Yellow Jacket fan base in Georgia and doing so will be a factor that drives recruiting. “It is my philosophy that we blanket the state of Georgia,” Johnson says of his recruiting objectives. “This year we signed nine in-state guys. I’m hoping in years to come it will be even more. Certainly with the reputation of Georgia Tech we have the ability to recruit nationally. But I don’t want to drive past a lot of good players here in Georgia or in the metro Atlanta area and get somebody who is exactly the same three states over. It doesn’t make sense to me in terms of drawing support or building a fan base. “You think of rivalries like Georgia Tech versus Georgia, a guy from Dublin, Georgia, is going to have a lot better idea of that than a guy from Dublin, Ohio. I think that comes into play sometimes.” Johnson says recruiting went well, especially considering the limited amount of time he had. “Recruiting is about relationships. That is one of the reasons I was happy with the way we were able to close this year, because in all reality, our staff had about four weeks because of the way the situation unfolded with the bowl game and the previous staff not leaving until after the bowl game. It was a scramble. “This year, we’ll have a lot more time to develop those relationships. We have coaches who have a lot of experience in the state, and I know a lot of the high school coaches in Georgia,” Johnson says. Tech secured letters of intent from 20 graduating high school students who signed to play football for the Jackets. “We addressed almost every position on the field,” says Johnson, adding that he concentrated on increasing the team’s speed. “We went after a lot of guys who could run. It has been my experience in football that if you can run, you have a chance to do some pretty good things, and those guys who can’t run don’t do too many good things.” Johnson immediately began a 6 a.m. workout program to strengthen players. “The one area where I think we can make an immediate improvement is our toughness,” Johnson says. “We have some pretty good ath- “This year we signed nine in-state guys. I’m hoping in years to come it will be even more. Certainly with the reputation of Georgia Tech we have the ability to recruit nationally. But I don’t want to drive past a lot of good players here in Georgia.” 42 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Spring 2008
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