Johnson Is Almost Too Good to be True

Up until Tuesday, it was safe to say that Kevin Johnson did his best work in silk shorts and a fancy tank top. All-Star point guard. Mr. Twenty-Ten. He looks like he was born in hightops. And yet, now it seems he’s even better in a suit and tie.

Tuesday morning, dressed as though he were going to meet bankers, Johnson came home to unveil his vision of St. Hope Academy, sort of a Boys’ Town with a point guard in the Pat O’Brien role. “That’s what everybody says, anyway,” Johnson says. “I’ve never seen the movie. I guess I’ll have to rent it.”

Nah. Why rent fantasy when you’re living reality? I mean, could anyone be more genuine than Kevin Johnson? Newspapers are full of the headline “Local Boy Makes Good.” But how often does the praiseworthy local boy remember where he came from?

Call him one in a million, but KJ does. After four years at the University of California and two more in the National Basketball Assn.--when he quickly became only the fifth player to average more than 20 points and 10 assists for a season, and is on a pace to make it two in a row--Johnson still summers in his hometown, still lives with George (Grampy) Johnson, his grandfather, still treasures familiar sights and sounds.

Johnson’s charity is legendary. He gave the Mazda RX-7 out of his driveway to a friend. He sent a check for $5,000 to a hard-luck security guard. He donates with such regularity to an Oakland elementary school that it has an annual KJ Day.

Johnson has paid to have a friend’s teeth repaired. When he was still a student at Cal, he would stick a handful of dollars into the needy fist of a homeless couple he often saw, for no other reason than, “They looked so in love.”

But the project on Johnson’s drawing board now makes all of what he’s done before resemble a man dropping spare change in a Salvation Army pot.

The local boy who made good is extending a hand of help to his old backyard. Recently, Johnson invested $40,000 in a plot of turf in the Oak Park neighborhood across from Christian Brothers High School that served as a repository for fast food bags and broken bottles. Borrowing from Brigham Young, KJ happily said, “This is the place.”

It even had the right address--16th Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard--as though it beckoned someone with a vision to come to this place to do something special. That someone would be Johnson, who keeps King among his short list of heroes.

Sometime between now and June 1, there will be a groundbreaking on that forgotten square. Then an Oak Park architect and an Old Blue contractor will set Johnson’s dream in concrete.

By Christmas, Johnson hopes to see a finished, 7,000-square-foot home for St. Hope, complete with six classrooms, multi-purpose room, recreation hall, library, two bedrooms, an eating hall and offices. The place will cost more than a half-million to construct, another $150,000 annually to maintain.

“All I do--the fund-raisers, the speeches, the appearances--that’s all in everybody else’s community,” Johnson says. “I wanted to do something here.”

In an age when the enlightened seven-figure athlete argues that it’s up to someone else to serve as role model and lantern, Johnson has stepped forward with an idea as old as Wheaties boxes. Black athletes, he argues, are not visible enough in the black community. Get-rich-quick drug dealers too often fill the gap.

That’s where St. Hope comes in, encouraging, says Johnson, “personal growth and character development.” The inaugural program began last July, based at Sacramento High, for 15 boys aged between 9 and 16. Johnson hand-selected the charter class--his guinea pigs--from among friends and relatives.

For seven weeks, there were 2 1/2-hour classes three times each week, with four volunteer teachers instructing in various academic disciplines. Johnson took the final 20 minutes of each session to lead group discussions. There were also field trips to Oakland for a baseball game, to movies, a church-sponsored overnight camp and “Fun Day” at Arco Arena.

During the school year, St. Hope offers tutoring and regular group discussions.

Several of the current group played in a summer basketball league, and in the season just concluded, three St. Hopers claimed Sacramento High team awards. However, future candidates--boys and girls--won’t be screened for their jump shots.

Instead, they will be measured by St. Hope’s only yardstick: a desire to improve in life. Says Johnson, “We’ll base success on effort. Try. Be a little bit better than you were the day before.”

Johnson hopes to inspire more of that kind of thinking when St. Hope Academy has risen bright and shining from the dirt and weeds at 16th and Martin Luther King. Meanwhile, he’s hoping to get help at a building fund benefit dinner at the Radisson Hotel on April 11. Ronnie Lott, Wayman Tisdale and Johnson will speak. The Sacramento Kings and Suns will attend.

“Today’s kids need an alternative to boredom,” Johnson says. “With drugs, how much they’re seen every day . . . if they don’t have good role models, some of them are going to make decisions that aren’t very smart.”