Born in 1908 at Crossville, Tennessee, Joseph Laurent Johnson began his athletic career at Central High School in Waverly, Tennessee, where he lettered in football, basketball, and baseball for three years and was captain of the football team his junior and senior years. He continued playing those sports at Lambuth College in 1927, adding two years of tennis as well. He was a star for the Eagles, and the Lambuth College yearbook had this to say: “Laurent Johnson, Johnson, ‘The ‘Wizard,’ plied his magic for the Eagles in ‘27. It must have been the forces of the supernatural that moved the lad out across the field. He is fast, shifty, and as clean a sport as has been on our field.” Graduating from Lambuth in 1931, Johnson became athletic director for Freed-Hardeman College, where he also started intercollegiate football and coached basketball and baseball. Coach Johnson’s girls won the Mississippi Valley Conference in 1933. Returning to his alma mater that same year as athletic director and coach, Lambuth’s football team won the Mississippi Valley Conference championship one year and were finalists for two years. Perhaps his most crowning achievement as head coach was when his 1935 Eagles beat the University of Tennessee by a score of 29-28. In 1937 Coach Johnson resigned from Lambuth and entered the business world, but the proud legacy he left his alma mater will always be remembered in the annals of Tennessee sports history.
