Education
University of Portland.
University of Portland.
A 6"5" guard/forward, Johnson played at the University of Portland in the 1950s before serving with the United States military in the Korean War. He averaged 9.8 points over his National Basketball Association career, posting a high of 14.3 points per game with the Packers in the 1961-1962 season. To Johnson"s surprise, he was cut by Chicago before the 1962-1963 season began, allegedly because he "didn"t know the plays".
He then joined the Philadelphia Tapers of the American Basketball League.
Johnson hoped to return to the National Basketball Association after a season with the Tapers, but such an opportunity never materialized, and he played five more years in the Eastern Basketball Association. Because he had been cut by the Chicago Packers before his fifth National Basketball Association season, he did not qualify for a pension from the National Basketball Association, though after some effort, he managed to receive some money from them later in his life.
Johnson is the subject of a 2010 biography called Basketball Slave.
He began his professional basketball career with the Harlem Globetrotters, then played in the National Basketball Association from 1958 to 1962 as a member of the Philadelphia Warriors and Chicago Packers.