By Brad Welborn, LC sports information director
“In Your Name I Pray and Play.” Those seven words are what the people at Coca-Cola Wildcat Field hear over the speakers just before the National Anthem is played and the LC Lady Wildcats softball game gets underway. Those words spoken by the spiritual leader of the Lady Wildcats, Senior Jade Johnson.
Jade is a native of DeRidder, where she attended East Beauregard High School and earned a starting role for the Lady Trojans softball team for coach, and dad, Keith Johnson here eighth grade year. Like many collegiate and professional athletes Jade started playing softball when she was about 6-years old on Little League teams, then on travel ball teams during the summer, high school and now at Louisiana College. “ My dream when I was in 6th grade was to play college ball at Florida under Tim Walton and go to the Olympics, but of course that’s every 6th grade softball players dream.” Johnson said.
After deciding to stay closer to home and getting the opportunity to play at Louisiana College, Jade has become one of the central figures in the Lady Wildcats dugout more so than on the field since injuries have sidelined her for much of her career, even through high school. First year softball coach Lyn Bankston said, “Jade Johnson is the epitome of a team player, she is selfless, she puts her team members before herself, and she understands the concept that it’s not all about her, its all about the team.”
Jade’s list of injuries stretch back to her eighth grade season when she sprained an ankle diving back into first base. From that point to now she has had to have surgery on that same ankle, suffered bicep tendinitis, rotator cuff tendinitis, reverse tennis elbow, and before the start of her Senior year at LC, suffered a concussion at an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) camp. “That really hits hard when you’re just sitting there and you cant really do anything and you’re like, why God?” Johnson said, “Why am I still here if I just keep getting injured, it’s really a humbling moment.”
It was also the words of fiancé and former Wildcat football player, Brandon Porche, that resonated with Jade through her concussion this year. “He told me was when he was a Sophomore, “Big Wayne” was the guy in front of him and he said when he found himself being “Big Wayne’s” biggest cheerleader, biggest encouragement, making him better, is when he saw himself getting better and being more of a team player. That’s helped me this season, because I might not always be the one that’s chosen to play, but I know that if I’m encouraging that person and helping that person get better then one, I’m making myself better and also making myself a better teammate and making myself more available”
Through the struggle of not being able to play a sport that she loved since a kid, Jade became even more of the leader that Coach Bankston needed her to be this year, “Being a leader is not just being a rah-rah type person.” Bankston said, “It’s living your life as an example to the rest of the team, having character in everything that you do, putting everybody else in front of you, lifting people up, and being an example in adverse situations that occur.”
The example that she has set with her attitude during adversity and being 100% supportive of all of here teammates has proven to be life changing for several of the Lady Wildcats. “Im in FCA, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, on campus and I was the only softball player going for the first two years I was here.” Johnson said “I started inviting people and continued to pray for my teammates and to try and be that light, and at the end of my Sophomore year we had about 8 or 9 of us going. Then going into my Junior year we have a FCA retreat and got those 8 or 9 to go to the retreat and it changed lives. Mattie Stine, she’s a Sophomore here, really came out of her shell there and gave her life to Christ. It’s crazy how much God has changed people and how I’ve seen God move to bring us together.”
Coach Bankston echoed the impact that Jade has had off the field for more than just her teammates, “She understand the fact that she’s a college athlete and people look up to college athletes. The young girls that come to these games, they want to be just like them, and its more than about just playing softball.”
“When I first walked on campus here I thought this is home. I head the Louisianians and the Voices of LC sing and knew this is were I was going to go.” That was her initial thoughts four years ago and this semester Jade is graduating from Louisiana College in English Education to follow the footsteps of both her parents and older brother as a teacher. After a few changes in her major along the way and the revelation from God that Elementary Education was not her personality, she returned to the English Department and the professors that mean so much to her. “I love all my professors in the English department, I literally can just go and sit in their office and talk to them and that’s the sort of personality and relationship that we have. I just go and visit with them.”
The impact Jade Johnson has had on people in the softball program at LC, on campus, and in the cities of Pineville and DeRidder is undeniable and all always in the back of her mind was, “The questions I always thought to myself was, what legacy am I going to leave when I leave here? With the way I’ve seen God move, bringing us[the team] together in that respect I’m not afraid to graduate because I know they’re behind me. Seeing that, they’ve recruited more people and this year at FCA retreat we had 13 of us go so the number just keeps growing and growing and that’s where you can see your fruit.”
