Former UA teammates Johnson, Pierce part of new documentary
In Jason Johnson’s two productive years as Arizona’s starting quarterback, 2001 and 2002, he threw for 5,674 yards and 35 touchdowns. He was one of the few positive elements of the John Mackovic years.
In 2001, Johnson won the Woody Hayes Award as the top scholar-athlete in college football. Then he really started to roll.
As the producer/photographer/videographer for his own Seattle-based company, Jason Ryan Creative, Johnson has worked for ESPN, MLB, NFL and Major League Soccer.
His current project is one of his best and most personal. He just completed a six-part series on Long Beach Poly High School’s football team, an HBO, “Hard Knocks”—style series in which he follows the Jackrabbits through training camp and their September schedule.
The hook to the series is that Long Beach Poly’s coach is Johnson’s Arizona teammate, linebacker Antonio Pierce, who went on to become a standout linebacker for the New York Giants.
USA Football is underwriting Johnson’s series on Long Beach Poly. You can watch it on You Tube, Hudl, at maxpreps.com and on stack.com, which had more than a million views of an early episode.
“Antonio is so great with the kids,” Johnson told me. “It’s really interesting to see his transition from player to coach and how he relates to the players.”
Pierce somehow makes it work even while flying to New York once a week as part of his NFL analyst job with ESPN. His son, De’Andre, is a star safety on the team; he has already been offered a scholarship by Boise State.
All episodes are 12 minutes in length.
