The frigid cup of coffee sitting in front of Barry Johnson is evidence of how forgetful he is. Johnson, arguably the greatest athlete in the history of Herndon High School, strolls down memory lane, telling stories of his high school, college and National Football League careers for nearly an hour before realizing that, not only has he not tasted the cup of joe sitting in front of him, he hasn't even dashed it with any cream or sugar. He's gotten caught up in storytelling, but it's the stories of his past that define Johnson in the minds of Herndon's sports fans. Those with ties to the Herndon sports community each have their own Barry Johnson story.
"I played soccer in Reston so long ago that where the Taco Bell and McDonalds are on Sunset Hills Road across from that firehouse..." Johnson says as he takes his first step down memory lane. "That used to be a field. People wouldn't even know that there were just fields there."
The memories rush back to Johnson so fast that he has trouble keeping them in order. The Reston Raiders soccer team he played on until he was in eighth grade won numerous state titles and trophies, but he can't remember just how many.
Johnson is forgetful like that, or is he? He says he doesn't remember the accolades, awards, trophies or statistics from his brilliant career at Herndon High School — where he remains a legendary figure to those that watched his feet on the soccer field lead him to become one of the greatest goal-scorers in the history of the Northern Region. He says he can't remember exactly how it was that he earned a starting spot at wide receiver for Herndon coach Don Noll's varsity football team — a role that eventually led him to a full scholarship with Bobby Ross's Maryland football team and into the National Football League. Johnson doesn't remember his scoring average from his senior year in basketball either. What Johnson, who is now a team-leader of Object Systems Group's Washington, D.C., branch, and a husband and father of three children, does remember is the "team concept."
"Put the team first and everything will work out," he says before attempting to slide his 6-foot 4-inch body frame into the driver's seat of his car. He knows it's a cliche, but to him it's truth.
The final words he speaks about "team" before driving off were words that supported another version of what Johnson managed to accomplish in the last two hours he spent answering questions about his athletic past at the local coffee shop. He managed to defer credit to teammates, coaches and anyone he could think of besides himself, using a bad memory as a decoy. He's modest like that. As modest as he was in high school when he deflected attention even though he was an all-region kicker and all-region forward in basketball nearly every year he played those sports.
"Mostly you remember the highlights at this point in your life," said Johnson, smiling about the fact that he is a 38-year-old father and husband with his 20th year high school class reunion on the horizon.
WHAT JOHNSON, A STANDOUT with the varsity football, basketball and soccer teams, has are plenty of highlights. "In the first round of playoffs in [Barry's] senior year, we had a really good punt-returner who got injured," remembered former Herndon football coach Don Noll. "We put Barry in to run back punts. The first time he touched a punt, he ran it back for a touchdown."
That kind of diverse talent, which allowed Johnson to score with both feet on the soccer field and with both hands on the basketball court, came from his ability to emulate those that came before him.
"I always picked someone that I wanted to be as good as," said Johnson, who started his athletic career with Reston Raiders — a powerhouse club soccer team that he said had a big impact on his career. "My career evolved from soccer. We had kind of a nucleus of club players that made up that [Herndon High School state championship soccer ] team," said Johnson, who led Herndon to the school's only AAA boys state soccer title with a 1-0 victory over Stonewall Jackson. Johnson and the Hornets also won the Great Falls District and Northern Region titles in 1986 and in his first three years on the team Johnson recorded 39 goals.
"That was my favorite part, putting the ball in the net," said Johnson. "That was something I enjoyed early."
Johnson put the ball in the net enough to be named soccer's state Player of the Year in 1986. The self-proclaimed "offensive-minded guy" scored a lot on the basketball court as well pitching in 11.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game helping Herndon boys basketball coach Todd Crowley's Hornets to a 15-7 record his junior year. "I don't know what to call Barry's position because he does just about everything. He's so flexible, we try to take advantage of all of his skills," said Crowley in an interview with the Connection in 1986.
Johnson also led the Northern Region in points-scored on the football field as a senior with 92 points and as a junior was an all-region selection as he led the region in average yards per catch (21.3) on 37 catches. As a kicker, he broke the school record against Marshall with a 48-yard field goal (1984-1985). Johnson started to live the football dream — a dream that didn't start until his freshman year of high school when he played with his first organized football team.
"Because of my height, I was probably playing lineman my freshman year," said Johnson, who played with Herndon's freshman team. "I was probably lost playing football that first year. I was in awe of the older guys in Herndon. It was more of 'how can I survive this?'"
Soon, Johnson was not only surviving, but thriving. He kept the challenge alive by creating controversies in his head with opposing teams.
"Oh, they don't respect us," Johnson would tell himself of the opposing teams before taking the field.
Johnson eventually became one of the most explosive wide receivers in the Northern Region. "You are sitting on a keg of dynamite every time Barry Johnson lines up out there [at wide receiver]," said McLean coach Kurt Lindstrom in the Oct. 1985 edition of the Connection. "He's 6-foot-4 and we don't have two players that can stand on one another's shoulders that could have got that ball."
Johnson, being triple-teamed by Lindstrom's defense, leaped into the air between three defenders to corral a pass from Herndon quarterback Keith Moody for a touchdown and eventual victory over Lindstrom's Highlanders. Herndon finished with an 11-1 record in Moody's senior year.
"He was one of those guys that was just a winner," said Noll. "You put the ball up there and he is just going to get it. He was always at the right spot at the right time."
JOHNSON'S ABILITIES as a receiver led to an intense recruiting battle over the three-sport athlete. The University of Virginia, Syracuse and Maryland were three school's of the many that were after him, that Johnson made time to visit even during a senior year in which he was helping Herndon to the state soccer title. His father Paul, a long-time season ticket holder with the Terrapins, was happy to see his son sign with Maryland. Johnson, also a life-long Maryland fan, still has season tickets to Maryland football
He played in the Independence Bowl in the 1990 season and lettered in all four of his years at Maryland. He was an All-ACC selection at Maryland, but was not surprised that he went undrafted in the 1990 NFL draft after pulling his quad muscle in the NFL combine in Indianapolis that year. "I had never pulled anything in my life up until that point," said Johnson, who was only invited to the combine because of someone who had "pulled strings," he said. "I packed up my bags and went home."
His 4.6-second 40-yard dash time was also not a good sign, but a long-time Denver Broncos scout saw something in Johnson and convinced former Broncos coach Dan Reeves to give Johnson a tryout. The lanky receiver made his way through the 1991-1992 season with the Broncos as a special teamer before being sent to the World Football League's Birmingham Fire — a start-up league that the NFL was helping to nurture by sending some of its players to help bolster its rosters with talent.
Johnson later spent time with the San Francisco 49ers, where he thought his career would blossom. Between mini camp and training camp, Johnson experienced a life-altering moment. "Here comes the bomb of the conversation," says Johnson as he begins to reveal his medical struggle with Arterio-Venous Malformation.
Just weeks after doing laps around the 49ers training complex keeping pace with the game's greatest receiver Jerry Rice, Johnson found out that his football career was over. "I had a seizure in my sleep," said Johnson, who was told by doctors that he had AVM, an ailment that he had had since birth but had been unaware of. Doctors called the clump of weak veins and arteries that had bunched up in his brain, a "brain bomb."
He was diagnosed on June 13, 1993 and underwent brain surgery on Sept. 13, 1993. The left side of his head still shows minor scars from surgery.
"When you are in the NFL, you are your product," said Johnson. "When you experience something like that, you think of all the things you want to do in life. I wanted to use my brain to make a living."
JOHNSON HAS made a living in Reston where he lives with his wife Jessica — also a Herndon graduate — and his son Conner, 9, and daughters Morgan, 6, and Paige, 4. He has coached youth soccer in the past and added that to his kids he is just "a dad and a coach," said Johnson. "They hear the stories, which is okay."
"I took the passion for athletics and moved it to the business world," said Johnson. Johnson leads a team that runs a multi-million dollar technology and solutions company branch of Object Systems Group. He still follows Herndon's sports teams from afar.
Barry Johnson is 30 in a survey of the area's Top 100 Athletes by Connection Newspapers in 2000.