For Aledo basketball, it's all in the family

By Jarret Johnson

jmjohnson@star-telegram.com

ALEDO -- The Johnson family has become the face of Aledo basketball way ahead of schedule.

Rusty Johnson coaches the Lady Bearcats, ranked 10th in the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Class 4A poll, but his son Taylor steals the show on game nights in Aledo.

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Gallery| Girls basketball: Aledo 62, Timber Creek 45

Gallery| Boys basketball: Aledo 55, Timber Creek 54

Gallery|

Father-son combo

Rusty Johnson's career

2006-07: Aledo Junior High coach

2007-present: Aledo High varsity football assistant (cornerbacks)

2007-09: Boys basketball varsity assistant

2009-10: Girls basketball varsity coach (23-10, area round playoffs)

2010-11: 30-3, area round playoffs

2011-12: currently 24-4, 10-0 in District 5-4A

Taylor Johnson

2010-11: Freshman, varsity starter averaged 8.8 ppg, 2.9 apg, 2.1 spg

2011-12: Sophomore, averages 17 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 5.3 apg, 2.6 spg

The boys team has won four of its past five games, is third in District 5-4A and looks poised to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

Taylor, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard, averaged 23.2 points per game over that five-game stretch.

Second-year boys coach Steve Smith originally projected Taylor to make the varsity by his junior year.

"Then as the fall got started and I saw him play against the older kids," Smith recalled.

"I said there's no way I can keep this kid off the varsity and as the season got closer there was no way he wasn't going to start."

Taylor credits his father and coach Smith for helping him develop a high basketball IQ.

"I think that I'm pretty lucky to be playing on the varsity and for having coach Smith as a coach and coach Johnson as a dad," Taylor said. "Dad's always there at the games and after the game giving tips and always thinking and helping at home. Then up here at school I'm with coach Smith, so I always have a coach with me and that helps a lot."

The elder Johnson's ascendance at Aledo is no less remarkable than his son's considering this time six years ago he was hunkered down in tax season as a successful accountant in downtown Fort Worth.

His mother Doris, who raised Rusty and his eight older siblings, always suggested that he should be a coach following his basketball career at Grandview High School and Howard Payne University in 1990.

"When mom passed away it was an eye opener that life is short -- do what's important and what makes you happy," Johnson said.

"I always wanted to coach and had a good friend in Steve Wood, who I called and inquired that if I wanted to get out of accounting and into coaching how to do it. Within about two weeks I was in Aledo."

Wood, the defensive coordinator of the football team, and Johnson established a rapport while watching their kids grow up playing sports together.

"I have absolutely no regrets about the career change," Johnson said. "There was a huge adjustment period economically but in my six years of being a coach I've never woken up and not wanted to go to work. I couldn't always say that in my other job."

The Lady Bearcats made it to the second round of the playoffs in each of Johnson's first two seasons at the helm and finished last season as undefeated District 5-4A champs.

After Tuesday's 62-45 defeat of Keller Timber Creek, the Lady Bearcats (24-4, 10-0 in 5-4A) appear headed to a successful title defense.

"He is one of my favorite coaches that I've had," junior guard Mallory Powell said. "He is so encouraging, has high expectations and has us work hard to get there."

Johnson's decision to change careers has resulted in a close-knit family. His wife, Susan, is a math teacher at the middle school, their daughter Hailey is a freshman on the basketball team and their youngest son, Trey, plays baseball, basketball and football for the seventh-grade team.

"Words really can't describe what it's done for us," Susan Johnson said.

Jarret Johnson, 817-390-7760

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