Loren Johnson, a Tech defensive back in the late 1990s, has coached Highland Springs High to four consecutive state titles, but more importantly, has focused on mentoring his players and helping them to get college educations.
In a feature story that ran in a 1998 issue of the Hokie Huddler, Loren Johnson revealed that he wanted to play professional football.
“But if that doesn’t happen, I would like to go on and be a corporate educator,” Johnson said at the time. “[And] If that doesn’t work out, I want to be a high school teacher and coach and coach one of the most successful teams.”
Today, the former Virginia Tech defensive back is perfectly executing the latter part of that career plan, teaching at the high school level and coaching football. Those in coaching circles and other ardent followers of high school football in Virginia would judge his career to this point as an overwhelming success.
Actually, some might even argue that Loren Johnson ranks as the best high school football coach in the Commonwealth these days.
Five days ago, Johnson led his Highland Springs High School football team to its fourth consecutive state championship, as the Springers beat Stone Bridge High 37-26 in the Class 5A championship game to cap its first perfect season. The Springers went 15-0 and have won 29 straight games, but more impressively, they became only the third team in Virginia High School League history to win four straight titles, joining Hampton High and Phoebus High, two traditional powerhouses in the Tidewater area of the state.
“I’m more cognizant of it now than I was last year after the third one because it puts you on a short list of schools that have done it,” Johnson said Wednesday in a phone interview “I was excited about the opportunity and nervous about the opportunity in the same breath.
“It’s kind of like the [Virginia Tech] bowl streak. I can only imagine that Coach [Justin] Fuente and Coach [Bud] Foster and Coach [Charley] Wiles – especially the guys that have been there a long time, and Coach Fuente had it hanging over his head – I can only imagine the pressure they felt as coaches. Not the same pressure, but I can imagine how they would feel because there is something similar to it. So to be so close and not to win wouldn’t have been a good deal for anyone associated with our program.”
Sunday’s winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow in many parts of the state, and Richmond-area schools have been closed, thus allowing Johnson, who just wrapped up his 10th season at Highland Springs, a little extra time to savor the accomplishment. The past three years, he immediately returned to work and started planning for the next season by finalizing the team’s offseason calendar. But the past few days have been a personal victory parade of sorts for the Miramar, Florida native.
“Not that we’re going to hold off, but I’m giving myself a little bit of time to enjoy what has been accomplished,” he admitted.
The time also has allowed for reflection on why he coaches and what got him to this point in life. Like any coach, Johnson wants to win. He did plenty of that during his time at Tech from 1995-98 when the Hokies averaged nine wins per year and played in both the Sugar and Orange Bowls. He finished his career in fine fashion, as part of the Hokies’ blowout of Alabama in the Music City Bowl.
But Johnson has grown and matured since his playing days. Wins mean a lot to him, yes, but relationships now mean more. Part of his maturation has come from coaching and mentoring players now 20 years younger than him. He grows attached to them, and he cares more about their futures than their presents. He promotes them relentlessly to recruiters, knowing that football provides a vehicle for a college education – and subsequently a better future.
“It gives guys an opportunity to go to school that probably wouldn’t have gone to school if Coach Johnson wasn’t coaching,” he said. “So I enjoy that part of it more than the coaching because the coaching can be grueling at times. Most people play 40 games in four years. We’ve played 60 games in four years. That’s an extra 20 games on top of what you’re already going to do anyway. Then when you add preseason work in, being a dad, picking up part-time jobs, driving kids to camp, being a husband … you add all that on top of it, it becomes a process.”
He jokingly blames former teammate Brandon Semones and his wife, Alison, for taking him down this somewhat crazy path. Needing a job after not receiving a lot of interest from NFL teams following his senior season, he found out from Brandon that Alison had decided not to return to her position at Glenvar High School in nearby Salem, Virginia. Coincidentally, Johnson and Alison had the same degree, and she approached him about taking over her spot. He applied for the job, got it, and worked out an arrangement that allowed him to coach girls track at Glenvar and football at Lord Botetourt High, where then-head coach Tony Hart – a good friend of Bud Foster’s and now an assistant at Emory & Henry – needed another assistant.
That started him in the coaching profession. Of course, it wasn’t the first time he had received an assist from the Semones family. Brandon, a star whip linebacker and three years older than Johnson, constantly helped Johnson learn Foster’s defensive calls, particularly during Johnson’s freshman season in 1995. The tutoring paid off, too, as Johnson made one of the biggest plays in Tech history that season, tipping away a pass late in the game that allowed the Hokies to beat Miami for the first time in program history – and started a 10-game winning streak that ended with a Sugar Bowl victory over Texas. Johnson would wind up starting 41 games in his career.
“The Semones family has been there from day 1,” Johnson said.
Johnson worked as an assistant at Lord Botetourt for two seasons and played in NFL Europe in both off-seasons. He eventually found his way back to Tech, where he worked under Mike Gentry in the strength and conditioning area while finishing up work on his master’s degree. During that time, he met his future wife, Kimberly, who worked in the Hokies’ academic advising area. The two married in 2003, and after Johnson earned his master’s, he took a job as the head football coach at Stonewall Jackson High in Manassas that same year.
He spent four seasons there and often contemplated going back home to Florida, but he decided to apply for and ultimately landed the job at Highland Springs in 2008. Rudy Ward, the activities director there at Highland Springs, and then-Tech assistant Jim Cavanaugh were good friends, so that certainly worked in Johnson’s favor.
Johnson, who also teaches physical education, has taken a good football situation at Highland Spring and made it great. His teams have won at least seven games in each of his 10 seasons, and they do so in a way that should be familiar to Virginia Tech fans – playing good defense, taking care of the ball and making plays on special teams. His quarterback threw just 10 interceptions over the past two seasons, his players returned eight kicks for touchdowns this past season, and they also blocked 17 kicks in 15 games.
“The formula was put in place long before I became a football coach,” Johnson said. “Coach Beamer put that formula in place. You play great defense, you play great special teams, and you execute on offense. Every team that I’ve been on that’s been successful … we hung our hat on those things.”
Johnson also credited his staff for the team’s success – all of them played college football at various levels. Derrick Hopkins and Cris Hill, two former Virginia Tech players and two graduates of Highland Springs, work for Johnson as assistants. Johnson encourages his assistants to share their college experiences with his players, but tells them never to compare the players to themselves.
“That is taboo at our place,” Johnson said. “They’re not us. They have so many things that they deal with that we never dealt with, and because of it, there is a different dynamic. Without getting way into it, who I am as a coach has evolved a lot from middle drill every Tuesday under Coach Beamer to something different today.”
Of course, evolution will occur over the course of nearly 20 years, but Johnson’s values never will change. He harbors aspirations of coaching at the collegiate level, but he really wants to coach his two sons, ages 13 and 11 – he also has a 9-year-old daughter. Besides, he preaches family to his team, and he wants to live that commitment. He said any potential career move would have to be “life-altering.”
Johnson and his family rarely get back to Blacksburg – he said his last visit was for the spring game three or four years ago. His work as a coach on fall Friday nights and his sons’ Saturday games limit his opportunities, but he and the family may try to go to the Hokies’ Military Bowl game against Cincinnati.
It certainly would be understandable if he doesn’t make it, and in general, understandable for his lack of return visits to campus. He found his passion a long time ago – and it’s not coaching and the upcoming drive for a record fifth consecutive state championship.
His passion today is something of much more importance.
“As long as I have the opportunity to work with young people and give them an opportunity to grow as individuals, I’m going to do it,” he said. “And I’m going to help them as much as I possibly can.”
–VT Athletics