By Jason Pugh, Northwestern State Associate Athletic Director for External Relations; featured graphic by Brad Welborn/NSU Sports Information
NATCHITOCHES – Longtime, legendary Northwestern State track and field coach Leon Johnson, who led the Demons and Lady Demons to national prominence and tutored a pair of USA Olympians before retiring in 2013, died Tuesday after a brief illness.
Funeral arrangements will be announced soon for Johnson, 86, whose decades-long career at Northwestern made him a nationally recognized name in track and field. He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and his son, Dean, a former NSU assistant, another son, Kendon, and daughters Darla and Molly, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
“I’ve known Leon Johnson for many years, since he was coaching and teaching at Opelousas High School, and he has always been an exceptional person, mentor, educator, coach, neighbor, and family man,” Northwestern State President James T. Genovese said. “He brought out the best in people, not just his athletes. What he did in his coaching career in high school and then for 33 years at Northwestern is remarkable not only for the championships won, the records broken, but for the tremendously positive, nurturing influence he had on the young people around him along with his coaches and colleagues.
“As a coach and as a man, he made impact in the communities where he lived for generations of people whose lives are better because of him.”
The second-longest serving head coach in Northwestern State athletics history, Johnson’s impact on both the Demons program and the Southland Conference is indelible.
Johnson’s 31-year head coaching career at Northwestern ranks second in school history only to H. Lee Prather’s 36-year run as the Demons basketball coach. Like Prather, Johnson’s name resonates across campus.
Track and field fans enter the Walter Ledet Track Complex by walking or driving down Leon Johnson Lane. Northwestern’s annual track and field meet was renamed the Leon Johnson Invitational in 2011, making Johnson the exceedingly rare coach who led a team in a competition that bears his or her name.
A high school basketball coach in Colorado before moving to Louisiana and becoming a high school track and field coach, Johnson took the reins of the Northwestern track and field program in 1982.
For the next 31 years, he presided over 57 All-Americans, nearly 100 NCAA championship qualifiers, including national champions and a pair of Olympian triple jumpers – LaMark Carter (2000 Sydney Games) and Kenta Bell (2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games).
He helped Brian Brown develop into one of the world’s best high jumpers in the early 1990s after he won the 1989 USA Outdoors and the 1990 NCAA Indoors, setting a meet record with a 7-8 clearance. Brown went on to earn his doctorate and is the deputy director of athletics for student-athlete development, integrated healthcare and inclusion at Missouri.
“All of us at Northwestern State are saddened by the loss of Leon Johnson,” Director of Athletics Kevin Bostian said. “Coach Johnson’s impact on our track and field program is both tangible and intangible. His standout career helped cement the foundation for a tremendous stretch of competitive success that is reflected in the current state of our program – especially our women’s program that has captured five of the past six Southland championships. Coach Johnson earned the respect of so many of his contemporaries as evidenced by the Southland Conference’s Leon Johnson Coach of the Year Award. He was in a class by himself and we are grateful for all he poured into Northwestern State track and field, the university and our community.”
In 1986, Johnson was tasked with starting the Lady Demons track and field program. Under Johnson’s direction, and with his protégé and former competitor Mike Heimerman coaching her, Trecey Rew became Northwestern’s first female track and field national champion, capturing the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Discus championship.
Student-athletes like Carter, Bell and Rew – and a slew of other All-Americans — flourished under the tutelage of Johnson, a 1999 N-Club Hall of Fame inductee.
His Northwestern teams were fixtures near the top of the Southland Conference, capturing conference titles in 1993, 1999 and 2002 while finishing in the upper half of the conference standings each year from 1989-2005.
Johnson’s Northwestern squads collected top-20 team finishes in both the NCAA Division I Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
That extended run of success landed Johnson in the Southland Conference Hall of Honor in April 2017. Since 2014, the Southland presents the Leon Johnson Coach of the Year award to the top men’s track and field coach in the conference each season.
“Coach Johnson was one of the nation’s best mentors in his sport, and made a meaningful impact on his university, the league, and certainly the championship student-athletes he led in his program,” Southland Conference Commissioner Tom Burnett said upon Johnson’s receipt of the Southland’s top individual honor.
Johnson’s impact stretched far beyond the track, throwing areas, and jump pits where he spent most of his career – especially as it pertained to the student-athletes he coached.
He was the driving force behind bringing the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s Cross Country State Championships to Natchitoches and keeping it here for more than 30 years, making it a staple of the city’s athletic calendar.
An active volunteer, Johnson gave his time to the Louisiana chapter of the Special Olympics, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society.
Following his retirement from coaching track and field, Johnson became a volunteer assistant and advisor to former Mike McConathy’s Northwestern State men’s basketball team, providing insight on flexibility and conditioning for student-athletes while also imparting his vision to McConathy and his staff.