FARMINGTON -- Brad Johnson's had little choice, but to learn how to make surgical repairs mending broken hearts while winning a prestigious Coach-of-the-Year award.
In between guiding Farmington to an unprecedented back-to-back appearances in the Class 4A State girls basketball finals in 2020 and 2021, Lady Cardinal coach Brad Johnson received quite an honor.
After leading Farmington to a Class 4A state championship shared with Star City in 2020, earlier this year Johnson added the National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS) 2019-2020 Southwest Girl's Coach-of-the-Year to his personal trophy vault as sort of a belated harvest from a season short-circuited by covid.
Since taking over as head Farmington girls basketball coach for the 2009-2010 season, Johnson's guided the Lady Cardinals to three appearances in the state finals and brought home a lot of hardware.
Farmington athletic director Beau Thompson stated in a press release, "Brad was specifically nominated by the Arkansas Activities Association to receive this award and confirmed as the most deserving recipient by the NFHS Coaches Association ... Honorees were selected based on their performance in the 2019-2020 school year, lifetime community involvement, school involvement, and philosophy of coaching."
Arising From Covid's Ashes
During a July 19 school board meeting Thompson introduced the 2021 State Runner-up girls basketball team noting most girls on this year's team also played on the state title team a year ago that got their season shortened one game by covid.
"Lots of people would like to go to the state tournament six times or go to the regional tournament six times," Thompson said, adding Johnson's been to the state semifinals six times. "So that's pretty special and it's not only a tribute to Coach Johnson, it's a tribute to other coaches: Coach [Breanna] Jones, Coach [Jessica] McCollough, and Coach [Denver] Holt,"
Johnson echoed that comment attributing the success as a product of phenomenal community and a support system of coaches within a program that's been very blessed to have great players, great girls, serving as model student-athletes for a long time.
"It makes our jobs as coaches pretty easy. I'd like to echo that for Jess and for Denver and for Bre Jones as well," Johnson said.
He then launched into a detailed account of an emotional roller coaster ride that began with a March 7, 2020, win over Batesville by a 76-64 score in the Class 4A State semifinals held at Cardinal Arena. The team traveled to Hot Springs the following week preparing to compete in the state finals against Star City then had their dreams of winning an outright state championship ripped apart when the finals were postponed then canceled by the Arkansas Activities Association citing fears of covid.
"This group is probably, maybe the most endearing group that I've ever been around just because of everything that was thrown their way," Johnson said.
Beginning 2020-2021 Anew
The Class 4A State finals were never played and the Lady Cardinals were designated as co-state champions with Star City, then graduated three starters and five players from the 2019-2020 team that went 32-3.
"It was such a strange ending to that season, but then when we came back this year, these girls walked in in August {of 2020] and our first meeting was about understanding that we may not be able to control anything," Johnson said.
All the elements of basketball such as rosters, schedules, practices, or postseason hung like a cloud suspended over the 2020-2021 season as questionable variables that could get written off at any moment due to covid.
"The only thing that we could actually do was control how we approached every day and how we reacted to situations that arose," Johnson said.
He praised the team for overcoming everything from strange setups on benches to social distancing down to what Johnson described as an "absolute fear of not knowing what our roster was going to look like from day-to-day because of quarantines."
This type of emergency management presented scenarios no teacher or coach rehearsed going through college, and Johnson said the players were way better dealing with it than he ever was.
"They never batted an eye and I'm not so sure I've ever had a group just totally committed to the process of getting better and just having the mindset of this group. Of all outside stuff, they stayed so focused on the task at hand, which was trying to become the absolute best version of themselves every single day," Johnson said.
Thompson offered insight into that dynamic calling the Lady Cardinals a model of how to succeed in girls basketball around the state, saying he couldn't think of another team, another school that's had the consistency Farmington's achieved in Johnson's 12 years at the helm.
"If you go watch a pee wee game, if you go watch our fourth grade Cardinals go play we'll have four or five teams out there and they'll be running the same stuff virtually that these girls are running, a version of the same stuff that these girls run and that's because these coaches get out and work with these pee wee coaches and work with these girls at a young age that they know what's expected of them," Thompson said.
Classroom Instruction
Part of the resilience comes through Johnson's classroom work.
Preparation and training empower first responders and citizens to cope with emergencies. Those concepts are what Johnson conveys to Farmington Career Academies students as he teaches Advanced Health.
"First of all the whole premise of offering Advanced Health to high school students is to give us an opportunity to look at a different side of health," Johnson explains. "What we did was really targeted things like CPR. There is a need for that. We use the school nurse and the kids get certified with a program through the American Red Cross. Through knowing CPR and being certified the potential to save a life becomes greater."
Students learn field triage such as wound identification and understanding the difference when faced with different types of wounds themselves or while assessing a victim. They study different types of burns and how to treat them.
"Students learn what an emergency survival chain is," Johnson said. "All that, even as something as simple as a 911 call, can help save a life."
According to the American Heart Association, a chain of survival depicts critical actions required to treat life-threatening emergencies, including heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke and foreign body airway obstruction. Links within this survival chain include early access to the emergency response system; early CPR to support circulation to the heart and brain until normal heart activity is restored; early defibrillation to treat cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation; and early advanced care by EMTs and medical professionals.
"We get kids familiar with an A.E.D. (automated external defibrillator)," Johnson said. "Twenty-five years ago the average person didn't know much about an A.E.D. We don't want our students to just know where the A.E.D.s are (on campus) in an emergency, we want them being comfortable to get an A.E.D. and use it."
Emergency Management
The familiarity with emergency management carried over into basketball. Johnson skillfully surgically repaired broken hearts and steered players away from fears that might detract from their performance on the court.
Johnson witnessed the 2020-2021 team handle wins and losses in identical fashion, saying if a fan came and watched practices in August of 2020 and then came again and watched them in March, they were the exact same whether the Lady Cardinals were coming off a 40-point win or a heart-breaking 5-point loss.
"If you came in the next day and seen our practice and it was the exact same intensity level every single day," Johnson said.
"Again with their own identity they kind of started calling it the "windshield mentality." In other words everything is face forward. We're not looking at the rear view mirror, we're not going to worry about the success behind us or failure behind us, we're just going to look forward and be the absolute best that we can be and we want to peak at the right time."
Acknowledging there's been a lot of really good teams in the program for a long time going way before he took over, Johnson is not so sure that any group has ever embodied that mentality better than the 2020-2021 team.
"I'm unbelievably proud of them. It was a phenomenal ride, just a level of toughness and togetherness and sacrifice. We asked a lot out of them beyond the physical side of things. You know it's hard to talk 16, 17, 18-year-old kids about limiting their own social life. You want to hang out with your friends, but you might not be able to for the good of the team for the next six months," Johnson said.
"They represented our school and our community unbelievably [well] for a long time but especially this year and I challenged them to lead from the front to be the tip of the spear all year long and they are the absolute mirror of that."
Outstanding Record
Johnson's record stands at 248-85 overall, and 119-38 conference after leading the Lady Cardinals to a 2021 Class 4A State Runner-up finish, the school's second straight trip to the State finals.
That includes four seasons competing as a member of the 5A West. He has coached three district champions, two Regional champions, two State Runner-ups, and guided the 2019-2020 Lady Cardinals to the school's first girls basketball state championship since 2004.
"First of all that's a total program award, and I've said it for a long time, I've been very, very blessed with great players at Farmington, a great community and a great staff around me," Johnson said.
The Southwest section includes the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. Johnson is now in his 12th season as head coach at Farmington, taking over the program from Brad Blew beginning with the 2009-2010 season.
"Those awards they come sometimes with an individual's name on them, you know, but in reality I look at as a total program award," Johnson said. "I think that's a credit to all our kids, who played for us, and our staff and our community for being supportive for a long time. It's humbling, but again I look at it as a team effort."
Thompson stated in the press release, "He has continued to keep Farmington in the conversation as one of the premier girl's basketball programs in the state of Arkansas. Congratulations to Coach Johnson on adding another great accomplishment to his resume as the coach at Farmington High School."
School Board Salute
School board member Jeff Oxford said he wanted to tell the team how proud he and the school board are of them. The majority of girls on the team earned the right to play in two state championship games. Oxford never played in a state championship game, but said he knows what it's like to have a target on your back.
"For you to have played on a team that it was like that and it's real easy to get arrogant and full of yourself when you're that good, but the way you girls handled yourselves on the court, it was unbelievable," Oxford said.
"The way you handled yourselves in public it's hard for other schools to not like you when you're good people. They want to beat you so bad, but they still like you. Girls, I commend you, I know how much hard work you put in and man there's a lot of teams that would like to be there lifting that [State] Runner-up trophy. You all played further than anybody else. You just happened to catch somebody on a really hot day."
Harrison beat Farmington, 68-54, in the 2021 Class 4A State finals on March 20 at Hot Springs avenging a 63-61 loss to the Lady Cardinals two weeks earlier in the 4A North Regional consolation at Ozark. Farmington also won, 76-64, in the 4A-1 District semifinals on Feb. 23 after losing 56-42 on the road at Harrison in regular season play Jan. 8.
Farmington defeated Southside Batesville (59-45), Mena (72-47), and Pulaski Academy (67-62) in the Class 4A State tournament at Morrilton to reach the state finals.
On the other side of the bracket Harrison beat Brookland (49-41), Star City (62-57) and Morrilton (54-48).
"You all beat them a bunch. I'll call them now, we'll go play them tomorrow," Oxford said jokingly which stirred up the competitor in Johnson, who interjected, "We'll go play them. We'll set up a basket right in the parking lot. In 30 minutes we can have our shoes on and be ready to go."
Board president Travis Warren addressed Johnson, saying he was impressed as he watched the Lady Cardinals compete through the 2020-2021 season.
"It's a great team. I mean they worked just flawlessly almost, they worked together, and knowing what people do, it's a testament to your coaching ability and also their mindset of working together as a team."
It was a group effort. These 18 girls worked together very well.
