Jerry C. Johnson, who led LeMoyne-Owen College to a historic NCAA Division III national championship in 1975 and coached at the school from 1958 to 2005, passed away on Sunday (January 24) at the age of 102.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Johnson was a football player at Fayetteville State University who learned the game of basketball from North Carolina Central’s former men’s basketball coaching legend John McLendon who is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and recent recipient of the NCAA Theodore Roosevelt Award.
When he retired in 2005, Johnson was one of only six NCAA coaches over the 800-win plateau. He coached 821 victories in 46 basketball seasons at LeMoyne-Owen, currently 21st on the all-time wins list. Late Winston-Salem State head coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines with 828 wins in 47 years has the most in HBCU history. Gaines and Johnson are the only HBCU coaches with over 800 wins.
Johnson was the first black basketball coach to win a Division III national title. LeMoyne-Owen was the second Historically Black College and University to win an NCAA national title (after Gaines and WSSU in 1967) and remains the only men’s basketball college program in the state of Tennessee, and the only sports program from the city of Memphis, to win an NCAA championship.
Johnson is a member of the Fayetteville State Athletics Hall of Fame, the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) Hall of Fame. He is survived by his son, Jerry Jr.; his daughter, Wandra Haywood and her husband, Samuel, of Gainesville, Fla.; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
Details of the funeral arrangements have not been announced at press time.