STrib: Ex-Gopher Damian Johnson has successful first year as North St. Paul coach

per Marcus:

In a Q&A last month, Johnson talked about his first season at North St. Paul, how he got into coaching and the Gophers.

Q: How rewarding has it been to see the Polars have so much success in your first season?

A: The kids were kind of hungry. They had a bad year last year. They wall wanted to win. We’ve got a lot of guys who are seniors (scoring leader Goodnews Kpegeol 18.2 ppg) who want to go out with a bang. It’s not me. It’s them wanting to work and get better. I just want to help guys reach the heights I’ve reached and even go further. I think being able to help a lot of guys understand the game and doing the extra stuff it makes my day a lot better. I feel like all the work those guys put in makes me proud. I walk around with a smile on my face seeing those guys put in work and wanting to get better.

Q: Did you always want to become a basketball coach one day?

A: I always felt like I was just a natural coach. It’s always been in me. I was always a guy who loved studying film and stuff. I always wanted to get more knowledge of the game and get different nuances from different coaches. I picked up a lot from Coach (Tubby) Smith, but also from what Tom Izzo used to do to us. The (NBA Development) League helped me out a lot about getting guys isolated and into scoring opportunities. I loved picking stuff up from other people. I feel like I’m a sponge. I rather do that than sitting around and watching the game. I’d rather pass my knowledge on that I picked up from other people. I always knew I would be a coach. It was just a matter of time.

Q: What was difficult to watch for you when the Gophers struggled and played shorthanded this year?

A: It’s all about sticking together and not worrying about all the outside stuff. You could see them focusing on the refs and stuff like that. You can’t let all the negative noise cloud your mind during games. I’ve seen a lot of that from those guys.

http://www.startribune.com/ex-gophe...291903/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it

Go Gophers!!

22-4 on the year, 15-1 in the conference, ranked 10th in 4A. Yep, Damian's doing well. Really nice to see a Gopher as a coach in the MN high schools.

The sky's the limit for Damian and coaching. Aaron Robinson is on his staff there. I asked him on Twitter whether Lil-A would be on his first Gopher staff, and he said definitely!

Bad Gopher said:

The sky's the limit for Damian and coaching. Aaron Robinson is on his staff there. I asked him on Twitter whether Lil-A would be on his first Gopher staff, and he said definitely!

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I didnt know this. I've always liked A-Rob. Great story!

Bad Gopher said:

The sky's the limit for Damian and coaching. Aaron Robinson is on his staff there. I asked him on Twitter whether Lil-A would be on his first Gopher staff, and he said definitely!

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It's a big jump from high school to high major on a lot of levels. He seems like a real dedicated family man, and coaching in college is brutal on family life. I just don't see it happening. Wasn's A-Rob a grad assistant for a year with the Gophers?

Holy Man said:

It's a big jump from high school to high major on a lot of levels. He seems like a real dedicated family man, and coaching in college is brutal on family life. I just don't see it happening. Wasn's A-Rob a grad assistant for a year with the Gophers?

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That's the question - whether you want that life. It's why Mike Grant still coaches high school. But it made me wonder when Damian said in the article that he feels he was made for coaching.

Reminds me of my sister. She was asked several years ago to coach middle school girls BB. She took it on and did a bang-up job. She took a team that won just a few games the previous year and coached them to a .500 record. I said to her, Lynn, you might have a future in coaching. She said, no bleeping way. She wanted to have a life. I suspect there are a lot of people out there with the coaching knack that just don't want that life.