BASKETBALL LEGEND STEWART JOHNSON, WITH DAUGHTER, PRECIOUS, A STANDOUT IN HER OWN RIGHT IN BASKETBALL.
Clairton’s own comes home, drops diamonds of knowledge on and off the court
For many players, the basketball court is the place to show your bravado. But for Stewart “Stew” Johnson, the court is his pulpit.
“Being in basketball, I’ve been surrounded mostly by young men and women who were at least a generation younger than me,” said Johnson, who is 79.
Now, he voluntarily coaches young Swedish kids in the sport to not only teach about the fundamentals of basketball, but the fundamentals of life as well.
“People say, ‘why don’t you get a job where you get paid?’ My payment is to watch these kids grow,” Johnson told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an exclusive interview. “I do a lot of counseling there, too. I like that kind of challenge.”
Let’s take it back some years. Standing 6 feet, 8 inches tall, it was a no-brainer that Johnson would play basketball.
“In my early years I was ridiculed a lot because I had the biggest feet, I could never get shoes my size, could never find pants long enough, mama would let the cuffs out trying to make the pants long enough,” Johnson recalled. “I felt like the odd man out because you want to be like your friends and be able to do the things your friends do and I couldn’t do that because of my height. Kids are brutal with nicknames like ‘daddy long legs’ and all those different names, especially when you’re going into your teen years…none of the girls would dance with me because I was too tall.”
Johnson made major strides in the sport on both the collegiate and professional level. In 1963 he burst on the scene as the first Black varsity scholarship basketball player at Murray State University, in Kentucky, something they never saw down in those parts. Johnson was the first Black Division I basketball player to receive a scholarship in the entire South.
“That happened mainly because in those days when they took photos of the game, everything was black and white, and I was light-skinned,” Johnson told the Courier. “A lot of schools were recruiting me thinking I was a White player. And when the recruiters came here and found out (that I was Black), I believe one of the things that influenced them was my parents—my father was a policeman, and my mother was a religious woman—the coach promised to do things to protect me and he did that.”
For “Stew” Johnson, he said he cried “twice a day, but my father said, ‘you started this, so you finish it.’ It was rather difficult being down there. Being the only Black is one thing but all the other players on the team were White, from the South who never played with a Black player, and I had to fight with my own teammates. We traveled to games in Mississippi, Alabama and places like that and the team would go in restaurants and eat and they would bring my food out in a brown paper bag. We’d go to hotels and the team would go in and sleep and I would sleep on the bus. The coach would fight for me, but he caught hell, too, with people saying they were going to bomb his house, too.”
On the court, things turned out great for Johnson. He scored a total of 1,275 points at Murray State, including averaging 20 points and 14 rebounds in his junior season. He helped Murray State to an Ohio Valley Conference championship, and served as team co-captain in his senior year. Johnson was inducted into the Murray State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1979.
Members of the city of Clairton welcomed Johnson back to his hometown earlier this spring. They had lunch with him and reminisced on the old times in Clairton, as well as saluting him for an incredible career.
“Stewart is truly an icon,” remarked Clairton resident Cynthia Diann Long, to the Courier. “He integrated a school at the age of 18. I can’t imagine all the things he went through.”
“There was no pattern for, ‘what do you do with a Black player?’ because integration had never been done before,” Johnson recalled when he set foot at Murray State. But Johnson said he’s glad that his experience, regardless of how traumatic it was, helped pave the way for more Blacks to attend the university.
In his early 20s, Johnson turned professional and was selected by the New York Knicks in the third round of the 1966 NBA draft, but he elected to join the American Basketball Association. He played for seven different teams including the Kentucky Colonels, the New York Nets, the Houston Mavericks, the Pittsburgh Pipers, the Carolina Cougars, San Diego Conquistadors and the Memphis Sounds. Johnson scored 10,538 points during his nine years in the ABA.
When the ABA dissolved, Johnson played on various teams overseas. He played in 17 different countries including France, Spain Argentina, and Switzerland. He’s lived in a dozen countries. In 1978, Johnson joined the Icelandic Division I club Ármann as player-coach.
After spending the next two seasons with River Plate in Argentina, Johnson returned to Iceland in 1981 and joined a team there called “KR” as player-coach. He led them in scoring in 1983 while finishing second in 1982.
“Back then, my favorite places were Argentina and Switzerland,” Johnson told the Courier. “Europe didn’t have that slavery history that we have here in America. “I’m just a little ole’ country boy from Clairton who got the chance to visit and live in places and explore the different cultures.”
Johnson inspired his cousin, Sherry Buckham, to shoot hoops.
“Looking up to him was magnificent,” she said. “We have tall people in the family but not as tall as him. I was very proud of him for all he has accomplished playing internationally and all. He inspired me and my twin to play basketball. We played it for four years. I can still see after so many decades that he is still being recognized and everyone respects him for the person that he is. The family is proud of him and his daughter.”
Johnson has been married three times and has six children: James Stewart Johnson Jr.; Steve Johnson; Gundrum Hattie Emil; Kenya Emil; Jason Johnson and Precious Johnson.
When his time on the court as a player ended, Johnson began coaching his daughter, Precious, who just graduated from Duquesne University in May. Johnson returned to Pittsburgh from Sweden to attend Precious’ college graduation. Precious will continue at Duquesne to earn her master’s degree.
STEWART JOHNSON WATCHED PRECIOUS JOHNSON GRADUATE FROM DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY IN MAY 2023.
Precious Johnson is 6-feet-4, and so it’s no surprise that she starred on the Duquesne University women’s basketball team. She averaged 10.3 points and seven rebounds in 2022-23. Precious Johnson was born in Helsinborg, Sweden.
“It’s been a pleasure watching her,” father Stew Johnson said. “I coached only men, but when Precious was about 10 years old and began bouncing the balls sitting on the sidelines, I decided I was going to start a girls basketball team.”
“It started with just Precious’ friends, I saw her developing,” Stew Johnson added. “I knew she was going to play basketball because I am a coach and I saw her potential. All of a sudden, she was six-two, six-three and six-four. With her knowledge, talent and background, she’s going to be better than I was and that’s what a parent wants, for their child to be better than themselves.”
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