The Dennis Johnson Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, October 1st, 2002
You
were born in September of 1954, three years before the
Celtics won their first world championship.
Your parents were much like mine – working
middleclass with plenty of mouths to feed.
Please tell me a little about your family,
especially those early years growing up in Compton.
We
lived in a community between Compton and San Pedro.
Both of my parents worked – my father was a
cement mason and my mother was a social worker – and
baseball was a very big part of our lives.
My father played, and so did all of my brothers
and sisters. I
played Little League growing up.
As far as family goes, we always looked out for each other. The siblings would step in and help whenever our parents were away. We made sure that the work got done and that things were taken care of around the house.
Did you follow professional
basketball as a youngster, and what are your memories of
the Bill Russell Dynasty?
I didn’t follow Bill or
the Boston Celtics all that much, although I certainly
knew who Russell was and what the Celtics were
accomplishing at that time. My father always took us to sporting events – we would
occasionally see the Lakers play, but at that time it
was mostly the Dodgers.
We had a very large family so he would take
advantage of the neighborhood deals on tickets.
We’d go to whatever event that offered the best
deal so that everyone could go to the game. When you’re taking more than ten people to a sporting event
it‘s important to do so in the most economical way
possible. Football,
basketball, baseball, soccer – we’d go to all
different kinds of events.
Sometimes me and my brothers would even sneak
into games.
Did you follow all those
classic battles between the Celtics and the Lakers in
the 60s, and did you ever imagine being a part of this
great rivalry?
Yes, I knew about those
great battles between the Lakers and the Celtics, but I
never imagined that I’d one day be directly involved.
Basketball at that point in my life wasn’t
really something that I considered seriously.
I was playing baseball, in part because I was
actually quite small – certainly too small to be
successful in sports like basketball or football. I was something like 5’-4” in junior high school.
Your
first sport as a child was baseball.
You went out for basketball as a seventh and
eight grader at Roosevelt Junior High School, but were
cut from the team both years.
Which sport – baseball or basketball – did
you have a real passion for at this point in your life?
In
junior high I went through a transition of sorts. This is when my interest in basketball became much greater
than my interest in baseball.
Baseball suddenly seemed boring to me.
It wasn’t fast-paced like basketball.
My goal was to play basketball even though I’d been cut from those teams. It was devastating to be cut – it hurt a great deal – but I wasn’t going to give in and quit. I decided to prepare myself so that I could play the game to the best of my ability. I wanted to improve. That was very important to me. So I went out and worked hard to improve. This lesson stayed with me far beyond junior high basketball, and has really touched every aspect of my life.
You kept going out for
basketball, making the C team at Dominguez High as a
sophomore and then JV as a junior.
As a senior you were primarily a bench player.
Did these experiences help fuel your desire to
succeed on the professional level?
Absolutely.
My high school experience was a great source of
motivation. I
didn’t think I was a bad player – I’d grown to
5’-9”, which wasn’t exactly big, but I’d
continued to work on various aspects of my game.
The lack of playing time had more to due with our
varsity team at the time.
Our varsity team was pretty decent.
There were some good players on that team.
