Jovon Johnson is eager to show others the way

SASKATOON — Jovon Johnson has made it through 11 seasons as a cornerback in the CFL.

He has battled receivers for footballs, taken on blockers bent on erasing him from plays and fought off challenges from players eager to take his job.

In short, Johnson is a survivor. And that also applies to his escape from his hometown of Erie, Pa.

“When I go back home, a lot of people show me love when they see me in the community doing stuff for the kids,” Johnson, 34, said Wednesday after the Saskatchewan Roughriders held a training-camp workout at Griffiths Stadium at the University of Saskatchewan.

“So many people come up to me and tell me how proud they are that I was able to stay focused, get myself out of that environment and accomplish so much.”

Johnson saw it all growing up; he even did some of it himself. But he got his life straightened out, made it to the University of Iowa to play NCAA football, had tryouts in the NFL and then embarked on a CFL career.

He since has started the Jovon Johnson Skills Academy in Erie to help kids follow the same path — the one that can lead them out of the Pennsylvania city.

“There are a lot of gangs and turmoil that you face as a young kid growing up in Erie that you want to try to get away from,” Johnson said. “A lot of the kids I work with back home face that every day. I try to give them something positive to get their mind off of being in the street life and growing up in that environment.

“If you have a sport that you’re good at and you work at it every day, you can make it and be successful and get out.”

Johnson admits he “played both sides of the fence” when he was growing up, falling in with the wrong people while also trying to stay on the straight and narrow.

Some of the problems in his life were created at home. The man whom Johnson’s mom was dating at the time was a drug dealer, which exposed the youngster to some things no child should see.

“You can only imagine as a kid — seven, eight, nine years old — seeing the number of people coming in and out of the house buying drugs or seeing the amount of money I would find in the house,” Johnson recalled. “I saw people smoking weed, doing cocaine, fights, guns — everything. I stood next to a guy who got shot in the face.

“I’ve pretty much seen so much that nothing really bothers me or moves me. That’s why in football I’m always even-keeled. I’m never too high or too low and in the midst of adversity I don’t get rattled.”

Erie took a toll on Johnson that was even more personal. Just off the top of his head, he could remember eight of his relatives who have been killed in the city.

That list includes his younger brother, DaQuan Crosby, who was shot and killed in 2008. Johnson recalled other relatives whose lives ended violently in Erie, including four cousins and an uncle.

Johnson calls what has happened (and is still happening) in his hometown “madness.” But that craziness helped him realize what was necessary to get things turned around.

“(The past) showed me that, in order for a kid in that environment to be successful, they have to make the right decisions, the right choices, and surround themselves with like-minded people,” he said. “If you surround yourself with the people who are doing bad stuff, ultimately you’re going to follow suit. That’s what I did as a kid. I followed people who were doing all the wrong things.

“When I finally came to my senses and realized that I didn’t want to live that life, I started to surround myself with people who wanted to play sports, focus on school and do all the right things. That helped me be a better person and a better football player and showed me the way out.”

He started down his escape route midway through high school.

In grades 9 and 10, Johnson attended school with several of his friends. As a group, they didn’t do much other than play basketball and ignore instruction in class.

For some reason, the light bulb went on for Johnson.

“I just knew at that moment that I wasn’t going to survive if I continued to do that,” he said. “Going into my junior year, I transferred to a prep school and everything changed. I moved in with my coach and I was able to focus on sports, focus on school and remove myself from that environment.

“Everything just started going up from there.”

After graduating from prep school, Johnson went to Iowa and played four seasons with the Hawkeyes. He registered 17 career interceptions, one off the school record.

The 5-foot-9, 190-pound corner spent the 2006 season with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers before heading to Canada in 2007. He played two games with the Roughriders that season and was on the practice roster when they won the Grey Cup.

Johnson played the next six seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, with whom he became a CFL star. He was named a divisional all-star four times and a league all-star twice and was voted the CFL’s most outstanding defensive player in 2011 — the first DB in league history to earn that award.

He subsequently spent two seasons with the Ottawa Redblacks (earning one divisional all-star berth) and one campaign with the Montreal Alouettes before rejoining the Roughriders in 2017.

If he retains his starting corner job, he’ll enter the 2018 season with 34 career interceptions and seven TD returns, two shy of the CFL record.

“I take offence when people start to say I’m old or I can’t do this or do that anymore,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, as long as I work at it and keep myself in shape, I can do this as long as I want — and nobody’s going to tell me when it’s going to be over or how much longer I have.

“I’m going to continue to do what I’ve got to do, lead these young guys, bring them along, be the veteran in the room with a voice and show them the way.”