Lindsay Johnson was a basketball lifer. She went to Columbus High School, where she was an All-Region basketball player. As a small forward, she used her talent on the basketball court to play four years and earn a degree at the University of Auburn-Montgomery. She always knew she wanted to teach and coach; she just thought she would be coaching basketball. And she did – for a while. Then volleyball came along.
After graduating from UAM, Johnson went to work at Shaw High School. She was hired as a special education teacher and head women’s basketball coach. Johnson was quite happy coaching basketball and wasn’t really looking for anything else to do. Eventually, the volleyball coach left, which opened up a position at Shaw.
“Some of the players at the time asked me to coach the volleyball team,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know anything at all about the game. I had never played; Columbus High didn’t have a volleyball team when I was there. But I agreed to coach the girls.”
For two years, she was head basketball and head volleyball coach. Then she stepped down as head basketball coach but continued working with the basketball team as an assistant while still serving as head volleyball coach. After six years at Shaw, she left for Northside. Johnson, who still teaches special education and coaches volleyball, is in her second year at Northside.
So why did she give up basketball for a sport she knew nothing about? “I love the girls and their commitment to the sport,” Johnson said. “The commitment level they have to volleyball is greater than the commitment level I see in other sports. They truly love the game. They are driven and self-disciplined. They never miss practice and they play year-round, and that helps the program tremendously.”
Because Coach Johnson never played volleyball, she had no idea about the fundamentals of the sport when she started coaching. Johnson set out to learn volleyball, and it’s a quest she still pursues today. One thing that really surprised her when she began coaching volleyball is how technically sound the sport is. The girls have to be in excellent physical condition but they must also know the technique and fundamentals of every position on the court.
“You can’t hide anybody on the floor,” she said. “I’m still learning the sport but these girls love the game and really want to be a great team. That makes 
me want to learn even more about volleyball. I love the kids and I love their passion.”
For a relative newbie at volleyball, Coach Johnson’s teams have done pretty well. Her first year coaching volleyball at Shaw, the girls made it to the Elite Eight. After that first year, they played for a region title every year under Coach Johnson. Last year at Northside, the Patriots made the state playoffs and this year, the Patriots were 8-4 at the time of this interview in late August. The region schedule didn’t begin until September so Coach Johnson didn’t yet have a good feel for how the region picture would take shape.
Coach Johnson strives to do everything she can in order to give her kids what they need to succeed. She has a threefold approach to coaching: Do the right thing in school, in the community, and on the court. If her players do those three things, then the wins, losses, and playoff appearances will take care of themselves. It doesn’t hurt that Johnson’s practices are notoriously difficult, either.
“We make practice as hard as we can,” she said. “Our practices are harder than most of our games. That way, when we get in a close match, we have the mental toughness to grind it out. We want to win those close sets, and a lot of the time, those come down to mental toughness. That’s what we’ve been working on this year.”
Nearly all of Johnson’s volleyball players want to eventually play in college. And that’s where her kids have a tremendous advantage over others. Though Coach Johnson didn’t play volleyball at all, as a former college athlete, she knows the recruiting process well and she knows what it takes to play at the next level. “We go hard at every practice and we’ve built our program around toughness,” she said. “That has helped get these young ladies ready to play volleyball at the next level.”
Coach Johnson has been in the Columbus area her whole life, and she doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon. She has no desire to coach in college and she is perfectly happy with where she is.
“I will stay at the high school level,” Johnson said. “I love being in the classroom with my special education children. And I love coaching high school kids. I like watching them grow and mature into responsible young adults, and I enjoy helping mold them into successful women.”
Coach’s Corner/Columbus Valley/October 2014
Lindsay Johnson
Northside High School
Columbus, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Johnson leaves familiarity of basketball for a sport she never even played
