Joe Johnson, Chicago native soon to be college Grad '23, Undertakes New Journey with the Boston Celtics

When people thinks of a career in the NBA, they likely think of playing, or possibly coaching. However, organizations have many more employees who are filling important roles behind the scenes. The Lesley Public Post recently had the opportunity to meet someone who was involved in a program we had not previously heard much about.

Joe Johnson is a senior at Lesley University, with an individually designed major with a concentration in sports management. He is an intelligent student that has been on the deans list, while playing college basketball throughout his college career. As he reached the end of this past season with the Lynx basketball team, he realized his collegiate career was coming to an end. He also realized he still loved basketball, He knew that if he was not going to be playing in the NBA that he would be working for a professional sports team. After his time as a player was over. He began to explore options to stay involved in the sport while also starting his career.

While Joe was mainly raised in Chicago, he spent some of his summers in Boston with his dad. It was then that he learned of and participated in a Celtics summer camp. The Boston Celtics run several outreach programs both during the season and in the summer, where kids of ranging from 5 to 17 years old can learn the fundamentals of the game. The focus is not on creating the next superstars, but rather it is on fostering important skills- such as teamwork and sportsmanship. The kids at the camp also get to have fun and meet people within the Celtics organization. Some past events have included appearances by players, coaches, and none other than the Celtics mascot: Lucky the Leprechaun.

Recently, Joe was hired as a full-time employee in the Celtics' Youth Development and Gameday Operations department. His job includes a mix of responsibilities. On game days, he runs a booth at the arena, recruiting kids and families to the youth camps. When the camps are taking place, Joe runs drills with the kids and encourages them to apply lessons from the game (such as overcoming adversity) to their life. Camps are run at the Auerbach Practice Arena in Brighton, with occasional events at TD Garden in Boston, the Celtics home arena. In both cases, kids are given the unique opportunity to play on the same court as their heroes on the Celtics.

Joe says, "We do a lot of outreach all throughout New England, from Maine to New Hampshire to [Springfield, MA] …We have partnerships with different organizations like community centers and the YMCA that we run our programs with." And he credits His mother Kimberly Dixon-Johnson who passed away from brain cancer for teaching him the importance of mentoring the youth.

"I feel like [my mom] helped me with this job… She was a social worker in the Chicago Public School system who was very passionate about helping the younger generation. Seeing the joy she had with mentoring kids is what gave me the idea with wanting to work with the youth. To follow her footsteps."

He also talked about how losing his mother early on in his college journey did not stop him from chasing his dreams. He learned valuable lessons from watching his mother battle through brain cancer. "Even when my mother was sick with stage four brain cancer she still was giving back and teaching the youth. "Seeing her having an impact on the youth was very important both when recruiting people to sign up for the camps, and when talking to and instructing the kids at the camps.

One thing Joe hopes is to do more work in the future with reaching out to those coming from lower income backgrounds, particularly in inner city Boston. The Celtics do offer need-based discounts for their camps, but as the program is growing, he hopes to do even more, especially connecting to communities and families that might not think they are able to afford the camp.

"The experience has been a blessing in a way," he says. "It's been a lot of work…[but] it's fun to just connect with kids now that I've transitioned from playing to the youth development side. Just knowing the impact that you can have on kid's lives is what makes me excited to go to work each day, and makes me excited to spread the word about the camps… A lot of people might want to come to the camp but might not know [about it]."

For more information on the Celtics camps, visit https://www.nba.com/celtics/jrceltics.