It’s Elementary

Long before he established himself as one of college football’s best defensive ends, Kentucky’s Dennis Johnson was a high school scrub, a human tackling dummy, a sideline standby who played only during garbage time.

Then again, he was only 6 at the time.

That is no misprint. Johnson, among the top prospects in the upcoming NFL draft, was a member of the Harrodsburg (Ky.) High football team when he was a 5-foot-7, 170-pound second-grader. His is a bizarre story to just about everyone but his older brother, Derrick, who was a third-grader on that same team.

“One of the guys on the team had to teach me how to tie my shoes,” said Derrick, who was 5-6 and 185 pounds when he was 7, and years later would join Dennis on Kentucky’s defensive line. “We grew up on the football field.”

The Harrodsburg team was coached by their father, Alvis, who ran the football program for 25 years before following his sons to Kentucky, where he is an assistant athletic director. He is a past president of the National Federation of State High School Assns. An official from that governing body said Dennis and Derrick are believed to be the youngest participants of any high school varsity sport in history.

“I have a real hard time believing anybody out there could do it at a younger age than they did,” federation spokesman John Gillis said.

The two cases that come closest, Gillis said, were girls who excelled in cross-country. One, from Alabama, won six consecutive state titles from grades seven through 12. The other, from Kentucky, won five consecutive titles, beginning in fifth grade.

At the time the Johnsons were playing football, Kentucky was one of five states that allowed younger students to participate in varsity sports even though they had yet to enroll in high school. There was no minimum age limit when the Johnson brothers joined the team.

In the wake of their case, however, the state adopted rules prohibiting students from playing on a varsity team before seventh grade. Later, that was changed to ninth grade.

After playing one varsity season when they were in elementary school, the Johnsons only practiced with the team until they reached junior high. So, for Dennis, the journey from second grade to first string took five years.

The Johnson case was more a curiosity than a concern. They were hulking--bigger than many of their teachers--and Harrodsburg competes at the Class A level, for schools with the smallest enrollment. The boys trotted onto the field only when games had been decided and third-stringers were getting a chance.

“I remember the first game I put Dennis in,” Alvis said. “I put him in at guard, and he was 6 or 7 at the time. His assignment was to block the linebacker. He went out and blocked the linebacker. Actually cut him. I’m sure none of the people knew how old [the Johnson boys] were. You couldn’t tell them from a lot of the other kids.”

That was little consolation to the boys’ mother, Rosetta Johnson, who was wringing her hands in the stands when she first watched her sons take the field.

“Did I flinch? Yes, I did when he put them in,” she said. “I said, ‘God take care of them and help [Alvis] make good decisions.’ But it was fun.”

Her boys have no regrets.

“Looking back on it now, I think it was a good thing,” said Dennis, who is 6-5 and 262 pounds and widely considered one of the top 10 available defensive ends. Draft experts say he could be selected as high as late in the first round. “It taught me about hard work, responsibility and, more than anything, toughness.”

Dennis, 22, USA Today’s national player of the year after his senior season at Harrodsburg, led the Southeastern Conference last season with 12 sacks, 19 tackles for losses, and five forced fumbles. He opted to forgo his senior season. He had a more noteworthy college career than Derrick, 23, a 6-foot, 325-pound defensive tackle, who is hoping to make an NFL team as a late-round draft pick or free agent.

Still, many people in Harrodsburg best remember the brothers as enormous for their age, legendary eaters, polite and respectful to a fault, and utterly devoted to following their father. They didn’t watch cartoons, they watched game films. It was common for them to attend coaches’ meetings or break down video in their spare time.

“By sixth grade, I was going through double- and triple-practice sessions,” Dennis recalled. “I was footballing it all day as a youngster. No time for me to go to the park and play on the swings.”

Innocence lost? That’s not how the Johnsons see it. They chose to focus on football--they never felt pressured, they say--and they were still kids in many ways.

“They found all the time for the normalcy of childhood,” Rosetta said. “They attended the birthday parties, they had kids over to spend the night, they’d go to church with them--that’s a priority in our household--they’d play the board games. We didn’t make them make these choices, it was just something they enjoyed doing.”

Sometimes, the age gap was glaring. When their teammates were writing to colleges, the Johnson brothers were writing to Santa Claus. When their teammates were chasing cheerleaders, they were chasing ice-cream trucks.

“I’d hear guys talking about girls,” Dennis said. “I’d just sit back and listen and say, ‘Man, what are these guys talking about? Girls? I don’t like girls. All I want to do is play football.’”

Chris Freeman was a Harrodsburg senior during Dennis’ first season. The two played the same positions--guard and defensive end--and frequently would face each other in practice. Alvis Johnson always instructed his players not to take it easy on his sons, make them work for everything.

“It’s really tough for a guy that’s 18 years old when you get a second-grader lined up against you,” Freeman said. “It was pretty much like a battle trench out there. It’s really tough to say, ‘OK, I’m getting ready to tear into you.’ It was a lose-lose for me, no doubt about it.

“People would tell me: ‘I can’t believe you hit a second-grader.’ I’d say: ‘Look, I’m not going to spend the next eight hours running sprints.’”

By the time Dennis was in the seventh grade, he was a starter entrusted with making the defensive calls. He felt like a veteran, and wound up starting six consecutive years. He had a keen ability to anticipate.

“The biggest thing was I was always the last one into my stance,” he said. “I was kind of a quarterback on defense--looking in people’s eyes, looking down the line to see if someone was in a heavy stance or light stance. It became second nature.”

And it still is, Johnson said. Football is still a major part of his life, but it isn’t the sole focus. He now has a 4-month-old son, Skylar, to whom he happily devotes every spare moment. Skylar doesn’t do much more than sleep and eat, which is no problem. Varsity football can wait. How long is anyone’s guess.