Friends, teachers grieving former Rolling Meadows athlete

Friends and former teachers reacted with shock to the death of former Rolling Meadows star athlete Mikal Johnson, and remembered him Friday as talented and kind.

Johnson, 24, was a 2008 graduate of Rolling Meadows High School where he excelled in both wrestling and football. He was shot to death Wednesday in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago for reasons that aren't clear.

Johnson and a friend had parked in Logan Square around 3 a.m. on Wednesday after a night out, and were walking to Johnson's home, according to Gerrik Birt, whose cousin was with Johnson that night.

According to Birt, a car pulled up near them, and an altercation ensued. Someone got out of the car and fired five shots, Birt said. He said his cousin wasn't hit, but Johnson was shot in the chest.

Birt rushed to Johnson's mother's house in South suburban Olympia Fields - the family had moved there from Rolling Meadows sometime after Johnson's graduation from high school - and went with her and Johnson's brothers to the hospital.

"They asked us to come into this little room," Birt said. The doctors said that when Johnson arrived at Mount Sinai he didn't have a pulse and that they had done everything they could to save him.

"My world just sank," Birt said.

Birt met Johnson while they were students at Columbia College and became close friends.

"We talked about our first loves, first heartbreaks, first everything," Birt said. "From that day I knew we had a special bond and special relationship."

Johnson was there for Birt and gave him a place to stay when he had troubles at home.

"Anything I needed, he was more than willing to oblige," he said. "He was such a joy and an inspiration."

No one has been arrested in Johnson's death, which is being classified as a homicide by the Cook County Medical Examiner.

"This was so random and senseless," Birt said. "We were supposed to be planning what to do this weekend, but instead we're planning his funeral. He got robbed of his life. He's still supposed to be here."

As a teenager, Johnson was a star athlete at Rolling Meadows High School.

His friend, Sean Campbell, said he remembers that Johnson came to him during their sophomore year and suggested they both join the wrestling team. Neither had wrestled before.

His senior year, Johnson finished 3rd in state wrestling at his weight class and was a running back on the Mustangs football team.

"That just showed me that with determination you can do anything and just how gifted he was as a person," Campbell said.

"For him to start something and dominate it in the fashion he did was unbelievable. That's the kind of person he was when it came to everything."

Campbell said he also had a passion and gift for the arts.

"He could sit down and write something so poetic and meaningful," said Campbell, who added that Johnson also painted and was a part of a coed dance group.

"He wasn't just an athlete, he was an all around amazing person," Campbell said.

Campbell and Johnson went to Colombia College together after high school. More recently Johnson was trying to get into a local semipro football league and use the money to go back to school where he was a semester or two away from graduating, friends said.

"He was just such a soulful person, but also a happy-go-lucky kind of guy," Campbell said. "There's not a moment I don't remember him smiling or laughing." Johnson still kept in touch with Rolling Meadows High School and returned in December to speak at a retirement party for Dave Froehlich, his former wrestling coach and boys athletic director.

"He said how fortunate he was to have people at Rolling Meadows who were willing to invest time in him," Froehlich remembered.

Froehlich said Johnson was special, and that family issues didn't stop him from being a leader in sports and in the classroom.

"He was so talented athletically, he learned quickly," Froehlich said.

"He knew he had it in him, but he needed someone else to tell him."

At the retirement party, Johnson told Froehlich he was hoping to graduate from college soon. He wanted to be a teacher and a coach.

A "Go Fund Me" site to raise money for Johnson's funeral has already collected more than $11,000.

Visitation for Johnson is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday at Seals Funeral Home, 8354 S. Marquette Ave., Chicago. The funeral will begin there at 10 a.m. Repast, the gathering of family and friends after the funeral, will be from 1-4 p.m. at Harris Park, 6200 S. Drexel in Chicago.

"This was a kid who was going in the right direction," Froehlich said. "And then this happened. It's kind of hard to swallow really."