James Beach
George Hamrick fondly recalls his first Red Bank girls’ basketball practice alongside the legendary John Crane after joining him following stints at LaFayette and Notre Dame in the mid-80s.
"Coach Crane's accomplishments were well known, and I was excited about assisting him. The first day of practice he points over at this girl and without hesitation tells me ‘That’s the best basketball player in Chattanooga'," Hamrick recalled. "I had to do a double take because I thought I had looked at the wrong player he was pointing out. Then I thought maybe he was messing with me because there was no way this little girl with the curly hair and fun-loving smile was that girl.
"It only took me about 15 minutes to realize not only was she the best in Chattanooga, but she was the best basketball player I had seen to that point," Hamrick laughed.
Pretty much everyone who ever saw Jennifer "Curly" Johnson outside of competition and the in-game Curly Johnson will tell you a similar tale. And anyone who ever met Curly Jennifer will point to that infectious smile as the great deceiver.
But to those of us who knew Curly through the years, it may have been the smile that first hooked you, but it was the person behind it that kept you coming back for more. My friend of nearly 40 years went silently to be with our Lord this past Monday after a heroic two-year battle with glioblastoma, a rare brain cancer that spares no one once diagnosed.
But Curly, like she did with everything she ever attacked, never accepted that, and never once lost her smile. She never stopped living and she never stopped doing what she did better than anyone I've ever met: making people feel good about themselves.
"Curly refused to ever let me get down after a bad game," said Ken Henry, who had Johnson on his bench as an assistant during GPS' run to three straight state tournaments culminating with a state championship in 2000. "She made good, better and bad, bearable. She would look at me and say 'It's ok. We got practice tomorrow and we'll figure it out' or 'Don't get down on her, she's just a sophomore and she will learn.'
"We were both products of public schools and being at GPS was a steep learning curve, but not for Curly. It all came so naturally to her. She loved the kids, loved her family, and loved people in general. She was a great teacher, coach, administrator, and mother. Her passing leaves such a hole in everybody she ever touched," Henry added.
Curly was at home wherever her travels took her in the coaching world. From East Hamilton to GPS to Soddy Daisy and Sale Creek. Her kindness and good heart resonated with country and prep and everything in between.
"I think you could have dropped Curly into any place in the world and if they didn’t speak English it would not have mattered. She would have fit right in. She made wherever she was feel like home," said Don Bishop, the longtime Red Bank principal and coach.
Added Jared Hensley, the former Soddy Daisy AD and current administrator: "She was a chameleon. Just the total package and there will never be anyone else like her and you can print that in bold and underline it. When she was first diagnosed, and everyone knew the odds, she was the one holding us all together, and telling us it would be ok. She rarely missed school during treatment and when she did, I got two or three calls a day to check on things. She just kept showing up and she fought it tooth and nail. I will never forget her voice and the way she would say my name every time she answered the phone with that Jarrrr-ed."
For the past 43 years I've been blessed to see this town's young athletes and tell their tales. And no one had a better tale than Curly. I can argue whether she was the best girl athlete I ever covered in high school (she was) but there is no argument as to her place in Red Bank lore. She was the best athlete to ever walk those halls, a three-sport phenom with all-state credentials in softball, basketball, and volleyball.
"Girls or boys she was the best. I used to tell Coach (Tom) Weathers she could have played quarterback for him. She went to play golf for the first time and played out of her partner's bag because she didn't have clubs, and shot even par. She was a natural at everything she did," added Bishop.
But even in her greatness on the field or court of competition, that was always overshadowed by her graciousness and humility.
Rachel (Crownover) Riden was one of her closest friends and a teammate for the Lionettes and fondly recalled the foundation of their friendship.
"I transferred from Boyd Buchanan to Red Bank in the ninth grade and that is such an awkward time anyway. I didn't know a soul, but then I saw Curly, and we had been ball girls together for the Lady Mocs as fourth graders, and it was like we had been together our whole lives. I was a point guard on the team, but after one practice I knew I was about to become a forward because there was nothing like Curly on the court. She made me want to be better and she made all of us better," laughed Riden.
"She was the same to everybody whether you were the garbage man or the president. That was just Curly," she added.
As a competitor, though, Curly's kind heart and demeanor never took a back seat to her desire to win. And as gracious as she was in defeat always, it was still about winning. She might have been rated E for everyone, but she would fight like the third Lion on Noah's ark when the rain started.
"Curly and Coach Crane had some battles. He would get so mad at her for picking up a foul and having to sit her, and Curly would spend the first five minutes on the bench telling him she didn't foul the girl, and when she didn't win that argument, she immediately started pleading her case to get back in the game, promising I won't foul again," laughed Hamrick. "Curly was just the kind of person that everyone would agree we need more of in this world."
Curly wound up signing a scholarship with Kentucky, but her career was cut short with knee problems. For the first five years I knew her, I never saw her without that ol' clunky knee brace they wore in the 80s.
"She hurt it her sophomore year at the AAU Nationals against Connecticut and Dr. (James) Andrews fixed her up. Her dad used to tell her if she would just give up one of those sports and concentrate on just one and maybe give the knee a rest it would get better, but Curly would have none of that. She loved being with her teammates so much," said her mother Liz. "She was all girl, until she got into competition."
The knee didn't stop Sharon Fanning from enticing her to join her Kentucky squad.
"I had known Curly and her family since she was in third or fourth grade. She was one of our ball girls at UTC. When she came to play for me at Kentucky it was hard because she couldn't play at the level she knew she could because of the knees. It tore at her because she was so committed to being the best in everything she did. The impact she made, though, was so much more than a player. Anything was possible with her, and her smile was just so infectious. People just couldn't resist her. If I or anyone could recruit a bunch of Curly Johnson's I promise you it would be nothing but successful," said Sharon Fanning, the Chattanooga legend who left UTC to coach Kentucky and later Mississippi State.
"The impact Curly had will last forever on the people she touched," added Fanning. "She was a dear friend of mine till the very end, and her family was just so supportive of everything we did at Kentucky."
Most folks from the day knew the legend of Curly's exploits at Red Bank, but her gift was never quarantined to just her playing days. Her impact continued first as a coach and later as a school administrator and delved into her role as a mother, a friend, a neighbor to someone who never knew her for her sports' prowess. Curly was a light, and it couldn't help but shine.
But it was never about Curly, and if you didn’t know her back story, you weren’t going to hear it from her.
“I never saw her meet someone where the conversation was about her. It was always about you. She was just such a humble lady. I never played basketball. Heck, I got cut in high school, and I would tell her you’ve teach these girls what you know, and she would always divert back to me, saying ‘You’re the superstar here. I’ll do whatever you want me to, but you’re the star here’,” added Henry.
And once Curly knew you, she was always invested in you no matter where her travels took her.
"I had known about Curly since her high school days and I thought she was the best to ever come out of Chattanooga, and then I got to coach with her when she joined me at East Hamilton. I've never been around someone so supportive, and she loved those kids. The kids she had in seventh grade were seniors this past year, and she always kept up with them. She was coming to see our sectional in Macon County this year and took a wrong turn and wound up in Lincoln County, but she was there for the state tourney in Murfreesboro. If she was part of you or your program, she was part of it for life," said Norma Nelson, another of the coaching legends Curly impacted.
I will miss my friend and her smile, but I take great solace in knowing she will live within as long as I am alive. In my mind, true death only happens when the last bit of influence of oneself leaves the world and there is no longer anyone around to remember them. And by that definition, Curly Johnson may as well be immortal, her impact among us she graced always alive while we live.
For more on her funeral arrangements: Williams, Jennifer “Curly” Johnson - Chattanoogan.com
(Contact James Beach at 1134james@gmail.com)