Johnson's Desire Fuels Tech's Will to WIN

By Doug Roberson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Paul Johnson's will to win is so strong, his wife jokes that he wouldn't even let his daughter win at Candy Land when she was a little girl.

When his wife would ask why, the coach gave the only answer he knew.

"Hey, she's got to learn to win on her own," Johnson said, retelling the story he says his wife still often jokes about.

Johnson's will -- no, his need -- to win, whether it's playing golf, football or even board games against little kids, is unlike anything his players or assistants say they've ever experienced.

Born and fueled in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina and then honed at coaching stops all over the country, that desire to be the best has helped Johnson propel the No. 9 Yellow Jackets to the Orange Bowl for the first time since 1967, the honor for winning their first outright ACC title since 1990.
"He's been nothing but a winner his whole life and he wants to remain that way," defensive coordinator Dave Wommack said. "If you're going to beat him in something, you better have your A-game."

Some of it comes from people telling him what he can't do. Take the people who said -- some continue to say -- that his spread-option offense wouldn't work in the ACC. Some 10,500 yards and 20 wins later, he's proving them wrong.

Some of it comes from just doing his job. As co-offensive line coach Mike Sewak says, you get only one chance every week to prove that you know what you are doing. He says Johnson always runs practices at full-speed, all the time. Sewak said he can't remember the last time a Johnson-coached team did a walk-through that was, in fact, a walk-through and not a full-speed exercise.

There's no wasted energy and no wasted time. The focus is on winning. It's why Johnson scoffs when asked why skill players rarely wear no-contact jerseys. He points out that the team they'll be facing on Saturday won't be playing two-hand touch.

And some of it comes from growing up as one of the youngest kids on his block in Newland, N.C. Johnson says you got competitive or you got whipped. Baseball, basketball or football. It didn't matter. No quarter was given.

"There's a fear of failure," Johnson said. "It's who I am."

Roddy Jones, a sophomore A-back, said that drive was evident in the first team meeting Johnson held after he was hired by athletics director Dan Radakovich in December 2007.

Some of the rules he put in place were simple: mandatory team breakfasts and mandatory class attendance. The last, however, showed his new team just how serious he was about one day leading his team to a national championship: 5:30 a.m. runs every morning before spring ball.

"We knew this was serious. We are going to work," Jones said.

It wasn't as if Chan Gailey, whom Johnson succeeded, wasn't competitive. Jones and others who work with the coach said the difference is Johnson wears his emotions on his sleeve. Despite the "I-don't-care-what-you-think" stance he often takes with the media or fans on his radio show, he takes slights personally. Couple that with his appetite for seemingly reading everything that's written about him or his team as he searches for motivation and it can make for interesting exchanges.

There was a moment earlier this season after Tech defeated Virginia, when Johnson good-naturedly called out a national blogger who had picked his Yellow Jackets to lose to the Cavs.

Then there was the "McDonald's" moment, while Johnson was coaching at Navy. Asked why the coaches seemed to get all the credit for the wins and the players the blame for the losses, Johnson cut loose but this excerpt made many chuckle:

"I don't go down to McDonald's and start second-guessing his job, so he ought to leave me alone," Johnson retorted.

Johnson can be just as caustic with his players. Former Middie quarterback Chris McCoy, the same player who torched Tech for five touchdowns in 1996, tells a story of how Johnson once thought he caught him smiling a couple of days after a loss. McCoy said Johnson grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him out of the huddle faster than you can say "spread-based option offense." And that was during practice.

"I was just admiring his wonderful coaching ability, and he took it the wrong way, I believe," McCoy now jokes. "You love to play for him. He's going to give you his all. You see that in every play he calls, every minute with him. He expects the same thing ... even when you are admiring his ability."

Those who play for or coach with him now tell similar stories. Tech center Sean Bedford said he wouldn't play Johnson in anything because he's afraid what his coach might do to win. Wommack said even if he has beaten Johnson in something, he wouldn't say. Sewak, who has worked with Johnson off and on since 1985, said he has beaten him in golf a few times, but jokes that Johnson wouldn't admit it.

"He's like me and like anybody else: let's run it again," Sewak said. "Best two out of three. It may end up best 1,300 out of 1,500."

Most important, beyond all the bluster, Bedford and quarterbacks coach Brian Bohannon said the team has taken on their coach's personality.

Take the overtime period of the Nov. 7 Wake Forest game, when Johnson, trailing by three points, risked his team's chances of the ACC title by going for it on fourth-and-inches from inside the 5-yard line. He later explained his decision by saying he can't ask his players to play to win if he's not willing to coach that way.

"He coaches the way he speaks," said Wes Durham, the radio voice of the Yellow Jackets. "He coaches the truth. He plays to win."

One can't talk about Johnson's competitiveness without mentioning the other big fourth-down decision. Trailing Clemson by a point in the ACC title game and facing fourth down on their last drive on their own 23-yard line with less than five minutes to play, the Jackets had to go for it if they had any hope of winning the game.

Johnson said there wasn't anyone on the field who doubted that not only were they going to get the first down, but that they were also going to score a touchdown and win the game.

"He's built the toughness and character of this team," Bedford said. "We have to go for 60 minutes. We're not going to stop until the final whistle."