Mother's influence has given U of L's Johnson 'game'

Few, if any, moments at the Derby Festival Basketball Classic at Freedom Hall on Friday night generated as much applause as Jaylen Johnson's final slam of the halftime dunk contest.

Johnson, a University of Louisville signee from Ypsilanti, Mich., brought his mother, Janetta, out of the stands to bounce the ball off the backboard to him for a powerful dunk. Afterward, she gave her son a big high-five and the dunk received a perfect score — a perfect tribute to the woman who taught him basketball and to love the game.

"I love basketball more than a girl should," Janetta Johnson said. "I could live in the gym."

Jaylen Johnson's ascent to the elite level of high school basketball has come with the support of a mother who excelled at the game herself.

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He is the 6-foot-9 son of a 6-4 mother who set the University of Wisconsin's single-season record with 130 blocked shots in 1988-89 before becoming a professional player. She also coached her son while raising him as a single mother, and basketball has been their common bond over his entire life.

"I love my mom," Jaylen said. "Our bond is really good. She told me that she's made mistakes in life and not to make mistakes. She told me to be tough.

"At first she didn't even like basketball. But once she found out that's her moneymaker, and that she could play basketball, she taught me that and taught me to keep going because she knew I loved it from the start."

According to his mom, Jaylen was destined to succeed at basketball, literally, since he was in the womb. Janetta Johnson jokes that there was "a basketball at the end of Jaylen's umbilical cord."

After her career at Wisconsin, she played a few seasons in Portugal before retiring to raise Jaylen and his brother. With her playing days over, she was determined to provide the guidance for Jaylen to excel as a player as well.

"I've known it since he's been in my stomach," Janetta Johnson said. "I prayed for Jaylen. I still hold records. I've always been good — always. So I asked God to bless him with my talents and make him better than me. And so he did."

Janetta Johnson was one of her son's AAU coaches from third to ninth grade, and she played every day with him on their full-length court in the backyard.

She never took it easy on Jaylen, who recalls going in the house crying after all the times she beat him at the game. It made him better in the end.

"I used to kill that boy every day," she said, laughing. "He'd be mad. I'd knock him down. I'd try to block all his shots. Then as he got older and he started getting a little better, he got closer to beating me and it got more competitive"

She added, with a big laugh, "Then one day (at age 14) he slammed on me, and I don't think I've beaten him ever since."

But Janetta Johnson kept demanding excellence.

She admits to being one of the most vocal and engaged fans at Ypsilanti High School games and said anyone who regularly attends them will recognize her.

"She's going to chew me out if I'm messing up," Jaylen said. "If I'm doing good, she's my No. 1 fan, but if I'm playing bad, she'll tell me. That's helped me a lot."

He's now one of the nation's premier high school seniors — ranked No. 56 in the country by Rivals.com — and Johnson soon will be playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference for a national championship-winning program and a Hall of Fame coach.

Johnson is known as an energetic rebounder and defender, and he said part of his drive to get loose balls and rebounds comes from his mom's frequent message: "Go get the garbage." He also has versatile offensive skills and should provide immediate depth in U of L's frontcourt next season.

"He can dribble, he can shoot. He can pass. He's got a real gift to see the floor, and he sees it in slow motion," his mom said. "As he gets stronger and works harder, people will see his gifts more and more."

Jaylen doesn't plan to back down from any top-level big man he encounters in college, and he credits his mother for instilling his confidence.

"I'm not the type to get punked, so I'm going to fight back," he said. "That's how I was raised by my mom and my coaches — to fight back and be tough. And it's seemed to get me a lot of places so far."

Janetta Johnson was the first woman in her family to graduate college, so she has a clear perspective and deep gratitude that her son will attend school with a full scholarship and compete at the highest level of college athletics.

She's had faith in Jaylen all along, regularly reminding him as a young boy that he would succeed and go far. Now she's confident he'll succeed at U of L and one day make it to the NBA.

"I think the sky is the limit for him," she said. "And if I don't believe it, who will?"

Steve Jones can be reached at (502) 582-7176 and followed on Twitter at @SteveJones_CJ.