‘Fuel Your Fire’: A Rising Basketball Star Grows When You Doubt


RALEIGH, NC – Diamond Johnson looked hopeful, expectant. High school coach Andrea Peterson had yet to receive the anticipated call that assigned Johnson to the 2020 McDonald’s All American Game. Peterson had considered postponing practice so the team could assemble for the celebration. Instead, he started and asked an assistant to record the televised nominations.

The game crowns a heralded preparatory career, a remarkable distinction in a lifetime. According to Peterson, the girls’ basketball coach at Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School in Philadelphia, Johnson deserved the honor as much as anyone else.

He saw Johnson as the city’s beating heartbeat, a quarterback’s hummingbird who wakes up in the early morning and stays long nights to get buckets and break his ankles on his way to qualifying. sixth in his class overall.

Johnson finished a shooting drill at practice that day. The assistant who recorded the All American nominations is back. Johnson’s name, he told Peterson, never came up. Peterson thought it must have been a mistake. The assistant insisted. Peterson asked for a water break. Johnson checked his phone, finding a string of consolation messages from his friends.

Sad and quiet, he unleashed his emotions throughout practice in a points tsunami like when he scored 54 points in a city championship game.

That night, as her sister and brother-in-law comforted her, she looked out, wondering what she could have done differently if anything had happened. He had committed to playing at nearby Rutgers University and thought maybe he should have a bigger stage in mind.

“That just added fuel to his fire,” Peterson said. “Everything in your life adds fuel to your fire.”

Women’s college basketball is largely an oligarchy. The same few programs — Connecticut, South Carolina, Baylor, Stanford, Notre Dame — typically compete for the championship each spring. “They’re like, ‘Why are they great?’ “The kind of teams you ask about,” he said. “And then you work to become it.”

Johnson led the Rutgers to score a season before transferring to North Carolina State, a school that took him heavily out of high school. “So many times that I can go Genos or PatsOne of the two and they knew me by first name,” said North Carolina State Coach Wes Moore, referring to competing restaurants in Philadelphia known for their cheesesteaks. “He’s special.”

NC State is on the verge of breaking the annual favourites. The program placed first in the NCAA women’s tournament last season when forward Kayla Jones injured her knee in the tournament’s opening game. They have deep depth with Johnson, who “just didn’t give us a spark,” Moore said. “He’s giving us a bonfire outside.”

Johnson comes off the bench, trailing only American center Elissa Cunane among the team’s top scorers (13.1 points per game for Cunane; 12.8 for Johnson). An odd point of contention is whether Johnson, listed at 5ft-5, or veteran guard Raina Perez, at 5ft-4, is taller. Johnson’s as comfortable as scoring a goal in the lane – “I’ve been short all my life and I’ve played against tall people my whole life,” he said – shooting a three-pointer as he steps back.

Wolfpack was ranked 2nd in the country before a recent overtime loss to Georgia. “I felt like I was the kind of player that needed to be showcased on bigger stages, and I knew they picked me up from high school, playing big games against the best teams,” Johnson said. “I was the only one who put myself on this platform and took it and ran with it.”

When Johnson moved from Philadelphia to Hampton, Va. at age 11, coach Reggie Williams envisioned him on that platform.

Johnson moved in with his brother when their mother, Dana Brooks, sought a safer environment for them than the North Philadelphia neighborhood on Diamond Street, after which Johnson was named.

“It’s basically like you’re surviving,” Johnson said. “We just have the mindset of being on the go. Being aware of what’s going on and just making basketball a point of departure not to get involved.”

Johnson was always fast and enjoyed gymnastics. In Virginia, he found himself among people whom he did not understand and could not understand the country dialect.

Williams’ Black Widow joined the AAU team. In this first practice, Johnson immediately dribbled towards the ring and threw the ball over the entire ring. Williams soon realized, however, that he immediately remembered Johnson’s lessons, such as the finesse of footwork and the advantages of angles.

Williams told Johnson that she has a special talent that needs nurturing. Johnson finally believed him.

“Everyone thinks his talent is basketball. No, his talent is the ability to grasp things,” Williams said.

As Johnson oscillated between spending the school year in Virginia and spending the summer in Philadelphia, competing against boys and learning not to rely solely on his talent, Johnson learned the game from Williams and his brother-in-law, Milton Rodwell. In high school, Johnson persuaded Brooks to let him move back to Philadelphia, where his father, James Johnson, lived.

Johnson had helped introduce his daughter to basketball. A brain hematoma and several strokes made him unable to walk or speak, and Johnson wanted to be closer to him. His father died in 2018 due to complications from his illnesses.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a sensitive topic, but I think what pushed and pushed him was his relationship with his father,” Williams said.

It was also contemptuously manipulated. Johnson had the slightest bit of not being selected for the McDonald’s All American Game in high school, if not the city. Hall of Famer and longtime women’s coach Dawn Staley is from Philadelphia and gathered In Johnson’s defense, though Johnson chose to play for Rutgers and famed C. Vivian Stringer at Staley’s University of South Carolina. The co-chairman of McDonald’s game released a statement. Declaration Explaining Johnson’s exclusion and defending the electoral process.

A few months later, Peterson asked Johnson to stay close and keep his phone close after a workout. This was odd and alarmed Johnson: Peterson never allowed phones in his practice. When Johnson’s phone rang, Allen IversonThe city’s respected basketball son and the crossover excellence Johnson emulated saluted Johnson and his teammates.

“What are you doing?” asked Iverson. “What’s going on?”

“We just finished practice,” Johnson replied.

“Application?” Iverson nodded, nodding celebrity press conference.

She had invited Johnson to play in the Roundball Classic at the 24K Showcase and become the first woman to participate against men. “This changed the dynamic of women’s basketball,” Peterson said.

The epidemic has canceled both the Roundball Classic and the McDonald’s Game. “I was going to show it because it couldn’t be any other way,” Johnson said.

Johnson is still on the verge of making a bigger name for himself. The NCAA tournament is when legends are made forever, and every tournament has a game ready to go viral instantly.

Peterson said he advised his nephews to watch how Johnson played the game and asked when he would have a pair of shoes they could buy in stores.

Just wait, says Peterson. He expects Johnson to be at this level one day.

Williams believes it’s just a matter of time.

“The gas pool is there,” Williams said, “and the spark is just waiting, and when it hits, it’s all over.”





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