Evan Johnson

Men's Basketball

Following in a Brother’s Footsteps

Leading up to opening night of the 2020-21 Georgia State men's basketball season, each member of the roster will be featured on a different day with a story, video, and social media elements. We continue the series today with Evan Johnson who enters his freshman season on the court with the Panthers.

Life can be hard following in someone's footsteps. It can be made even more difficult when it comes in the form of a family member. However, for freshman Evan Johnson, following in the footsteps of his brother Eric Johnson opened up doors for him and pushed him to want to be even better.

Evan's older brother Eric earned a state title and state of Virginia All-State First Team honors at Carlisle High School as a senior in 2014 before continuing his basketball career at Boston University where is played in more than 90 games. To some that could be a tall order to face, but not for Evan who is paving his own path.

"Sports were really big in my household growing up," Johnson said. "My brother has always been my toughest competitor as I was always looking up to him and wanting to be better than him every day. He was highly recruited in high school, had a good college career, didn't want to pursue it after college, but set the bar high for me and now I just want to set the bar even higher.

"He definitely opened a lot of doors for me. He had some big shoes to fill being a bigger guard, high IQ, me being a smaller guard, it was a really big jump for me. Just for me to be able to produce as a point guard and smaller, was a little tougher."

Now let's not pretend that Evan hasn't had an impressive career up to this point. He came to Georgia State listed as one of the top 15 players in Virginia after playing three seasons at Oak Hill Academy and helping his team to a 107-10 record, while picking up at least a half-dozen individual awards.

"What led me down the path of basketball was just seeing my brother and my dad," Johnson said. "My dad kind of made it bold that 'we want you to play basketball, but we are going put you in some other sports too.' Baseball was really the only other sport I tried. However, just being around basketball allowed me to fall in love with it."

When asked when he would time travel to and why for a separate piece, Johnson summed it up nicely, "I would try to catch more of my brothers college games. Back in 2015 and 2016 I didn't really get to catch a lot of his college games because of my own basketball schedule. Just to see his experience and how he performed. I only made it to probably three or four games during his college career. I still regret it to this day."

Although he won't get to travel back in time, Johnson can definitely build on his own already successful basketball career, follow the footsteps of his brother, and create a new path to be equally successful when his college career is over.
 
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Players Mentioned

Evan Johnson

#0 Evan Johnson

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6' 0"
Freshman

Players Mentioned

Evan Johnson

#0 Evan Johnson

6' 0"
Freshman
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