The original idea was for only about three people to come over to the Johnson household. Predictably, that plan didn’t last the night.
By the end of the evening on Friday, tissues were in short supply. Slowly, everybody in the tight-knit family started dropping by, wanting to see the first grandchild in their family off before he left for college. They cried together, ate tacos together and prayed together, cherishing whatever moments they could.
It was the last day in Garfield Heights for Meechie Johnson, a 6-foot-2 guard bound for Ohio State six months before originally expected.
“My dad is battling cancer and my mom is battling cancer now, too, so it was pretty tough for him leaving during this time,” said Demetrius Johnson, Meechie’s father. “But like I told him, you've got to man up. When things get hard in life, you go to your gym, you go to your outlet. You work out and you clear your head. The night before was tough.”
The evening before, Johnson had fit in one more workout with his father and personal trainer Demetrius Johnson and Reggie Lewis, a fellow trainer who’s been in his life ever since he was in eighth grade. That, too, ended in tears as they thanked God for their time spent working together and the opportunity ahead in Columbus.
See, everybody knew they’d ride this emotional roller coaster at some point. But nobody in the Johnson family – not Meechie, not Demetrius, nor anybody else – thought they’d go through it until early next summer.
Johnson committed to play for the Buckeyes in August 2019 with the intention of enrolling in the university about 22 months later. A high school junior at the time recovering from a torn ACL suffered early in the calendar year, he joined Convoy Crestview forward Kalen Etzler as a pledge in the 2021 class. Johnson remained on the timeline, never deviating.
He rehabilitated his knee as a student at ISA at Andrews Osborne during the 2019-20 academic year, not playing a minute of competitive high school basketball as a junior even though by February he felt 100 percent healthy. Over the summer, he joined the Indy Heat for a few months of AAU ball where he once again put himself in the limelight, and transferred back to Garfield Heights where he went to school for the first two years of high school, arranging to spend his senior year of high school playing for his uncle, Sonny Johnson. Everything since his surgery had gone as he’d hoped, and he and his father devised a year-long plan to get him ready for college.
But on Oct. 7, Johnson picked up a call from Ohio State’s coaches, including Chris Holtmann, that altered the course of his immediate future.
They broke to him the unfortunate news about Abel Porter. The Utah State graduate transfer had an incident during conditioning that led to tests where doctors eventually diagnosed him with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disease. On the early October phone call, they weren’t exactly sure yet what would happen with Porter. If he could still play basketball? Great, they wanted to keep him on the roster. If not? They said they would want Johnson to consider reclassifying and becoming a mid-year enrollee to get a jump-start on his Ohio State career and provide some depth in a backcourt that suddenly lost a veteran point guard.
“They said you don't have to do this. This is not something we're pressuring you to do. If you want to do it, you're our first guy that we want to come down here,” Demetrius Johnson told Eleven Warriors. “Coach made it real easy on him. It's up to you. If you want to finish high school basketball, finish high school basketball. If you want to come down, come down and play.”
Johnson considered it, his father says, and gave them an initial answer: No.
“Meechie said, ‘No, coach, I'm going to stay. I just came back to Garfield. I can't leave again. I want to finish with my brothers.’ That was in his mindset,” the elder Johnson said. “He wanted to finish with his brothers. I was trying to process everything – what was best, what's the best thing to do for him. We left it at that. He told coach as of right now, it's a no. I don't want to come down. I'm going to stay and play.”
Because he already left Garfield Heights once, Johnson didn’t feel like he could do it again. It was his home. His community. And most important, it was family.
Sonny Johnson, his uncle, earned Ohio Mr. Basketball honors in 1998 and now coaches the Bulldogs. Johnson already left once, transferring to ISA after his sophomore year, and now that he had an opportunity to finish his career out for Garfield Heights, could he really leave again? That's what led him to decline the proposal in the first place. But he hadn’t talked to his uncle yet.
Sonny, when learning what Ohio State had asked, gave him a quick answer: “Go. You're ready. This is what you and your dad have been working for. Don't worry about me. Go, go, go.”
Johnson’s stepmother was right there with his uncle, telling him “this is where he wants to be” and saying “he needs to leave.” His father wasn’t quite sure what to think immediately. But as Demetrius Johnson considered it, he realized he fell on the same side as his wife and brother.
“On my end, I'm thinking as a dad, what's better: For you to stay in high school?” Demetrius Johnson said. “Sure, you might have a shot at winning states or Mr. Basketball, but if you can go to college now and get into college practices and play in college games and learn and watch film and then you get a free year to do it? It was a no-brainer. Let's go.”
With Sonny’s blessing and his family’s support, Johnson changed his mind.
On Nov. 8, after Porter’s career came to a close, Johnson made it official. He announced his intention to graduate early from Garfield Heights High School at the Harvest Time Evangelistic Ministries Worship Center, his grandfather’s church.
Preparation for Johnson to begin getting ready for college basketball kicked off immediately with his father – who’s trained him his entire life – taking it into hyperdrive.
“Oh my goodness. It happened so fast. My mindset changed,” Johnson’s father said. “Every day, I was thinking like, ‘Man, my son's getting ready to leave. I had to get him ready. I had to be tough on him, toughen up and push him: ‘You didn't do that sprint hard. Start over. You didn't go hard. Start over.’ It was like he was when he was a kid. He probably was looking at me like I was crazy, but I had to do what I had to do with the time that I had.”
Johnson went from lifting weights to prepare for a high school season to trying to pump iron like a Big Ten guard. Went from conditioning like a high schooler to a college player. Went from a six-month plan to a one-month plan. He trained with Indiana Pacers forward JaKarr Sampson, former Louisville guard Trey Lewis and other pros. Johnson focused on full-court work to get him ready for the college game.
And the knee? His father says it’s “better than ever,” and his play for the Indy Heat over the summer backs that claim up.
“You can't even tell that he tore his ACL,” Demetrius Johnson said. “He worked his butt off for that.”
Now, it’s time to show that to Ohio State’s trainers and coaches.
As far as Johnson’s father knows, his son will make his debut as a Buckeye at some point in January. But there’s no rush to get him out onto the court. Not from Johnson, his dad or the Buckeyes’ coaching staff.
“It's going to be a while,” Holtmann said. “He's got to go through a whole battery of medical exams. He's got to acclimate himself to conditioning and to practice. He's done a great job kind of staying in pretty good shape, but there's not a chance in the world that we're going to throw a young man until he's absolutely ready into a college practice, much less a college game. I don't have a specific timeline, but it will be a while.”
Before his arrival, Johnson hadn’t played five-on-five in several weeks. He hadn’t been through a college practice or a Big Ten film study. He hadn’t learned all the plays or been examined by Ohio State’s medical team.
There’s plenty that needs to happen before that estimated January debut.
But once he takes the court? He could add something as a backup guard – even though he’s supposed to be a senior in high school right now – during a season where uncertainty has become the natural state of the sport.
“Those decisions that were made were made kind of with long-term thinking in mind about what can prepare him for an increased role next year,” Holtmann said a couple of months ago. “Having said that, I think there's real opportunities to help this team.”
Demetrius Johnson added: “Once he gets some practices in and gets that, he'll be ready to go. I mean, he's a gamer. He's a gamer.”
Soon enough, Johnson expects Ohio State fans across the country to figure that out for themselves. For now, he’s just getting acclimated to college life in a coronavirus era.
Not everything’s easy. Not everything will go according to plan. But after the past 18 months, Johnson’s gotten used to that.