The toughest job I can think of belongs to whoever has to find a photo to accompany this story.
Joni Johnson famously did not like having her photo taken, and woe betide the unsuspecting photographer who included a shot of Joni in a gallery. If she found a photo of herself in a gallery—and fair play to her, Joni seemed to peruse every gallery with the practiced eye of Sherlock Holmes searching for a clue—she would immediately call for its removal.
"Nobody clicks on one of our galleries wanting to see me," she would say (I admit I'm paraphrasing here). "They want to see the athletes."
Because for 30 years, that was Joni Johnson's—Miss Joni, to multiple eras of Austin Peay athletes—sole focus. If she could do something for an Austin Peay athlete, she did it. There was no sacrifice too great for Joni when it came to her student-athletes, and that's how she came to be a beloved figure in Austin Peay history—her omnipresence, her devotion, was second to none.
Austin Peay athletics Hall of Famer Chuck Kimmel, who gave Joni her start at Austin Peay all those years ago, saw in a freshly-graduated Joni Johnson someone who would give everything for her student-athletes. No shortcuts, no taking an easy way out. Willing and able to do the work. Kimmel and then-President Dr. Oscar Page hired her, first as a graduate assistant then on a full-time basis, and the rest was history.
"She loved Austin Peay," Kimmel said. "She loved working for Coach [Dave] Loos and working with those players and she gave her heart and soul to them. She was a professional from the day she arrived on campus, and those athletes couldn't have been put into better hands than hers. She was uniquely dedicated to the job; for her to give the bulk of her professional career to the athletes at Austin Peay was a real blessing for all those she was surrounded by."
Some of my personal most enduring memories of Joni had nothing to do with a singular outstanding feat or the sports she was directly responsible for—although as head of athletic training, she felt responsible for all— and everything to do with how committed she was to Austin Peay. Soccer Friday nights she could be found near the touchline closest to Drane Street in her chair. There she was, shuffling dutifully around Raymond C. Hand Park on a baseball Sunday afternoon. She commuted to football road games regardless of hazard—willing to leave at 9 p.m. after a home soccer Friday and drive half the night or get up at 3:30 in the morning and embrace the sun as it rose in the east. Nothing could—nothing was allowed—to impede her sense of duty to what was right, and that was being there, being present, and being able to provide support for anything that might hazard an Austin Peay student-athlete.
She was omnipresent on the bench at men's basketball games and never hesitated to give a ref a piece of her mind if she thought a call was wrong. She often shared that end of the bench with W. Cooper Beazley, Austin Peay's orthopedic surgeon, who knows better than anyone how invested Joni could get in Austin Peay basketball.
"Joni had the unique ability to scream at the ref and 99% of the time she was right and the refs knew it," Beazley said. "I never saw one threaten to throw her out of a game; it was more like a teacher talking to a student who screwed up. She bailed [manager] Matt Hallett and I out numerous times for some of the comments we made. [And] she was devoted to the team and the feeling was definitely reciprocated. She could take the kid with the worst attitude and turn him around. I really think the boys were almost as worried about letting her down as Coach Loos. The love and devotion of those kids to her was truly special."
She could be charming when you caught her in good humor, but anyone who won't cop to being a teensy bit afraid of Joni is either lying or has never met her. She once called and dressed me up one side and down the other because a player, in preseason mind you, was wearing a retired basketball number. I hadn't received an official roster at that point; we were months away from games being played. I was only vaguely aware that practice uniforms had been issued at this point. Right was right; wrong was wrong. And it was wrong for anyone to wear a number so sacred.
Joni was right. She was often right.
"I spent more time with Joni than I did with the coaches when I was a player," said Austin Peay legend Charles "Bubba" Wells, whose iconic No. 13 was the offending number. "Her parents were always special to me and we always had such a special bond. She's like family to me. She wasn't going to take any mess, but she is one of the most caring people I have ever met. Even when I was playing professionally, if I needed something, she was there and there were no ifs, and or buts about it, no hesitation."
Everyone has a Joni story. Some are great. Some are strange. Some are probably terrifying, although I didn't get any of those. But each and every person I talked to—directly or indirectly, even just to share an anecdote or ponder how odd a Joni-less future at Austin Peay might be—ultimately landed on the same theme.
If there was something she could do to help a student-athlete, she did it. Cost didn't matter. Time didn't matter. Nothing mattered except their well-being. It's a lesson in self-sacrifice and humility all too rare in the world at large today.
"Miss Joni will be missed at Austin Peay," said former Gov and current Indiana Pacer Terry Taylor. "She kept my body right to the point where I never missed a game in my college career. I'm beyond thankful to have come across Miss Joni. I hope retirement treats her the best, because she truly deserves it!"
I and countless others like me who have come to know and love Joni wish her a happy retirement. God knows she has earned it. She's earned the right to wake up on her terms, map out her day, put herself first for once. But there can be no doubt that we'll miss her presence. Over 30 years, Joni Johnson became intertwined with everything that was good and right about Austin Peay athletics.
"Having Joni was priceless," Loos said. "You can't measure it. It was 18 hours a day, 360 days a year. It was incredible, the amount of time she spent, the amount of responsibility she took on. To say she was committed was an understatement. I could trust that she knew what to do, and it was so valuable to have someone like that. During my time as AD, I was fortunate to have a number of people—Brad [Kirtley], Tara [Patterson], Cheryl Holt, Bud Jenkins, Sharon Silva—in our department where the best thing I could do was get out of the way and let them do their jobs. Joni was certainly one of those people."
Love ya, Miss Joni. We all do.
