Cooper Johnson Venice Track

When you have been giving interviews and watching others give interviews, so that you can learn from them, I have watched or been a part of thousands of one on one interactions with athletes. When I met Venice Sophomore Cooper Johnson, his athletic story was pretty amazing. His personal story is sad and inspiring at the same time and if you happen to read this article, I encourage you to reach out to this young man and hopefully I am able to capture how truly special Cooper really is. In 2011, Joplin Missouri went through an EF5 tornado that was a mile wide with winds that reached 200 mph. Johnson was 1 years old and his family moved to Joplin 2 days before the storm. Coopers mother was giving him a bath and since they just moved in, didn’t have their TV or radio on. The Tornado leveled their house right on top of his family and this is how Cooper started his young life.  

When Cooper was 10 years old, his mother split from the father and by Cooper being the oldest sibling, stepped in as the "man of the house" at just 10 years old. By most standards, that would be too much for any adult to come through, let alone a young boy. Unfortunately, the story gets worse. In summer of 2023 Cooper had a terrible pain in his side. He went to the closest ER and they said he should go to the hospital because there was an issue with his appendix. They ended up telling him, he would be needing surgery. He had to get a CT scan because of the situation, and no one knew that he was allergic to CT Iodine Dye, not even him or his mother. He  went into anaphylactic shock and a crash team came in and stuck needles in him to save his life, just barely; he  was quite literally on the verge of passing away. After the surgery, a red rash had appeared on his nose, and he was told he had lupus. Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues and organs. With a direct result being inflammation of his joints. 

During his freshman year, Cooper was invited to the New Balance National Outdoors where he was able to compete against the best track athletes from across the United States. As a freshman, Johnson was on the varsity football team, varsity wrestling team and varsity track team. The Irony of Coopers whole story is, that he loves to compete. And in order to compete at an elite level, you have to train at an elite level. The more training you do, the more stress that it puts on his joints and body. Because of the medications that Cooper takes to help with his disease, the harder he has to workout, just to get the same results as those he is competing against. He has to spend extra time doing things to help his body to recover, things that other athletes don’t have to do. That is to say, Cooper has to work 4-5 times harder then his contemporaries, to get the same results as them. "I have always been fast said Johnson, I feel like God put these obstacles in my path to show other athletes that they can overcome whatever they put their mind to." I asked his mom if Cooper would be healthier if he stopped training and competing and without hesitation, she replied  "yes." There is a very good chance that this disease will someday claim his sight and possibly other issues as well and according to Cooper, that is a price he is willing to pay. "All of the things that I have to go through are all worth it, because I feel like without sports, I’m not sure I would make it." 

As I said earlier, of all of the athletes I have talked to in my life, none of them had the type of impact that this young man had on me. I can assure you to hear his story of all of the tragedy that he has not only encountered but overcome in his short life, there is no way for me to fully illustrate that in this article. Cooper Johnson may become a sports superstar some day and I will be the first one there to celebrate every step of his journey. But from what I already know about him as a human being, Johnson is a world class person and it was an honor that he would choose me to share his story. Cooper Johnson, you are an inspiration and exactly why I love sports.