Security guard Johnson was outstanding athlete in football, hockey

• The following is part of an ongoing series of articles in celebration of Libertyville High School's 100th anniversary.

Don Johnson has been a Libertyville High School staff member for 24 years.

Seeing Johnson perform his current LHS security guard duties, one would feel compelled to ask him whom he played football for. His answer: Evanston High School, then Northwestern University. What LHS students probably aren't aware of are Johnson's accolades in hockey.

Johnson's high school football career was very successful. He was named All-State, MVP, and gained more than 1,000 yards his senior year. The college coaches started calling his junior year, with several Big Ten offers pending.

But it appeared like hockey would be the route Don would go for his future. He was a starter on the Evanston team that won the Scholastic Cup his freshman and sophomore years. His sophomore year he scored a hat trick in a 4-3 state finals win over Proviso West.

By his junior year he was playing for the Junior Blackhawks program, a national travel team. The Junior Hawks had hopes that Johnson would become the first African-American hockey player in the NHL born in the USA. There had been one previous black NHL player, Eddie O'Ree in the late 1950s and early '60s, but O'Ree was Canadian born.

Johnson gave up on his NHL dream midway through his senior year.

"In the middle of playing a 120-game Junior Hawks schedule my senior year, I was feeling burned out. That combined with the Big Ten football offers coming in, college football became a lot more appealing to me," he said.

At Northwestern, Johnson got some starts late in his freshman season at tailback. He was moved to fullback his sophomore year, but was hurt most of that year. His junior year he was moved to linebacker, a position he wasn't comfortable with, and he wasn't starting.

He jumped in on the scout offense at tailback every chance he could get, going against the first defense. He was doing so well against them the coaches decided to move him back to offense, where he got more playing time. His senior year he was hurt and wasn't able to play.

Johnson graduated from Northwestern with a degree in journalism. He worked in TV for several years, particularly in broadcasting football games. He came to LHS in the fall of 1994 to work in media services and coach the varsity football running backs.

He was part of the team behind CAT-TV, broadcasting LHS home football games in the late 1990s. He began as the play-by-play announcer before moving into the production room. Don started working in the LHS Security Department 10 years ago. He still broadcasts high school football games on the weekends for Comcast.