Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Basketball practice from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Catch up on homework, sleep and food afterward. Repeat for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and replace class with “optional readings” that aren’t really optional.
This encompassed the fall quarter for Oregon forward Amanda Johnson. Most students would consider this workload hard. Johnson thrives off hard work.
“She’s a very compatible person. She’ll have no problem (with the workload), especially on the academic end,” said Oregon women’s basketball coach Paul Westhead, a former college professor himself. “Give her more academic work, and she just sops it all up.”
Johnson was named second-team academic All-American by ESPN The Magazine and first-team academic All-Pacific-10 Conference. She is currently enrolled in the University’s master’s degree program for couples and family therapy, having graduated summa cum laude last summer with psychology and sociology degrees.
“This program is a nice mix of psychological principles, talking about the individual and how the individual function, and also sociology, which is the study of groups,” Johnson said of the master’s degree program. “You’re looking at how that individual is living within that group, and how that group lives within proper society.”
Rare is the player who enrolls in a master’s program while still competing in Division I athletics. Rarer still is the player who completed two bachelor’s degrees before her true junior year, and is expected to complete her Master’s degree requirements next spring.
“She’s a beast, on the court and in the classroom,” said Zac Clark, defensive tackle for the Oregon football team and Johnson’s boyfriend. “She has her goals, and she goes out and attacks them every day. She’s a very focused person.”
Johnson hesitates to call herself organized, but her studying process is very meticulous. Her day planner and cell phone calendar keep her up to date on what must be completed, and when. She writes down her notes in classes, keeping close track of what is emphasized in lectures. Her laptop is never out — “I think it’s too tempting to be distracted,” she said.
When she reads a textbook, a notebook is by her side, used for writing down important terms, concepts and cases. A five-pack of highlighters is then used to color-code everything into one unified key.
“I’m driven by success. I feel like if I don’t put in the preparation, the results that I want aren’t just going to happen by themselves,” she said. “I also know that what I do has resulted in success for me in the past, so it’s pretty easy to stay on regimen. I know that what I put into school, I’m going to see in results.”
Johnson takes herself as lightly as she takes her academics seriously. She is notorious for cracking jokes at her teammates and acting clumsy — a far cry from her on-court demeanor. During a press conference this season in the McArthur Court press room, Johnson, waiting her turn for an interview, leaned onto a wall. The lights in the room went off — Johnson had leaned on the switch.
“She’s just a goofball,” forward Tatianna Thomas said.
A goofball who is passionate about working with kids, and helping to solve a problem she sees in the way people are treated.
“In our society, individuals are often treated in isolation,” Johnson said. “Kids are often seen as the problem, if they have conduct disorders, if they are charged with crimes and misdemeanors and things like that. Whereas sometimes the root of the problem can be family-oriented. It can result from family interactions, it can be modeled after family interactions.
“I think that this is a logical first step for me to gain understand into how that system works, how it influences individuals’ lives, so that at some point I’ll be able to help the individual. I just think that society, in terms of advocating for youth, a family-oriented approach is something that’s very progressive.”
When Johnson’s youngest brother, Curtis, was born, her mother, Lisa, opened up a day care center in the family home in Santa Rosa, Calif. Amanda, by her own admission, did not help her mother in running the business, but observed how her mother helped the children in her care.
“She’s so great with them. My parents — they didn’t have really strong family units growing up. They didn’t have connective relationships with their parents,” Amanda Johnson said. “I just know how much a family can impact people. Not having your family supporting you or having impactful communication can be devastating.”
This is why she believes in couples and family therapy, and its inherent benefits.
“The individual’s choices are based on their lives. I think that children, adolescents who are still living at home, the significant group in their life is their family,” she said. “That’s who they interact with on a daily basis, that’s who they grew up under. I think that addressing problems from an approach that encompasses all family interaction will make more sense.”
Oh, and basketball? Johnson is fourth in the conference in scoring (16.1 points per game), tied for second in steals with teammate Nia Jackson (2.72), seventh in the conference in offensive rebounding (2.78) and tied for eighth in blocked shots (0.89). She appears on her way to another All-Pac-10 honorable mention for her on-court accomplishments.
Funny how those accomplishments seem to occupy a lower priority.
“She’s a very special person,” Westhead said.
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