Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Five Questions With … VOLLEYBALL ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH MIKE JOHNSON Mike Johnson is in his first season as associate head coach at Notre Dame, joining the staff of head coach Jim McLaughlin in January 2015. He previously was the head coach at Xavier, where his program won an average of 20 games per season during his five years in Cincinnati. BGI: What brought you to Notre Dame? Johnson: "I knew that in order to be the best I had to learn more, and I knew Jim was a person who could help me do that. "Then obviously Notre Dame itself. I've always held the belief that it could be one of the elite programs in the country." BGI: The program recently announced two signees in Jemma Yeadon and Lauren Woodard. What can you tell us about them? Johnson: "Lauren is a very good player; she's very balanced and can do a lot of things well. "Jemma is a girl that Jim knew back in his days at Washington, and we targeted her very early. She's only 5‑9, but has a reach of 10‑2 — she's very athletic and has a great competitive attitude." BGI: How is volleyball recruiting different than other sports? Johnson: "It starts so early. I have a database of the best eighth‑ and ninth‑graders in the country right now — many coaches do. Most of the best prospects are gone before they hit their junior year. "For a girl like Jemma to still be available this late was incredible for us. But you look at January [when the staff was hired], and some of the best sophomore targets were already gone. "We were trying to figure out not only our incoming 2015 class, but our '16 class, and really working on our '17 class and even starting on our '18 list." BGI: How does social media play a factor when you have to recruit prospects at such a young age? Johnson: "That's one of the challenges — 'How well‑formed is their character at a young age?' I don't spend a lot of time reading social media. "What we spend time on is talking to the people we trust who know the kids to see if they are the kind of kid we want in our program." BGI: What do you want your student‑athletes to take away from playing for you? Johnson: "The most important thing is we want our kids to learn lessons about themselves and about life. "Those lessons are going to be different for each kid because people come in with different challenges. Through our program we want them to learn the lessons they individually need that they can carry on later in life." — Jordan Wells JOHNSON