Tag: NC State

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Markell Johnson isn’t sure why he headed downstairs. 

He’d just finished a conversation with his mom, Sabrina, before heading toward the bottom floor of his home. 

When he reached the living room floor; when he walked past his dad, Mark Johnson; when he cracked open the refrigerator door, it was quiet. 

Too quiet.

“You just know when something’s not right,” Markell said.

Markell heard the faint crackle of the living room television. The normal witty joke or snarky comment from his dad was absent. Markell started back to his upstairs bedroom. He didn’t think too much of the silence.

Then, a shriek. Markell sprinted down the stairs at the blare of his name from Sabrina to his father lying on the couch unconscious. 

Two days later, on April 10, 2016, Mark Johnson passed away in the hospital. Markell had just been named by The Plain Dealer as Ohio’s Player of the Year. 

His dad would never see that article, nor his commitment to N.C. State, nor his eventual signing with a professional basketball team overseas.

None of that mattered to Markell. Oxygen flowed from Markell’s mouth into his father’s with his lips pressed over his with Markell’s hands pounding his chest. CPR failed.

The first defibrillator shock did nothing. Mark’s eyes twitched open for a moment on the second. The third couldn’t extract a sound.

He was quiet.

*****

Markell Johnson’s eyes began to twinkle.

A ring of upperclassmen encircled Markell during a timeout in the final seconds of East Tech High School’s regional final game against Uniontown Lake, the game knotted at 60. Markell was just a freshman. Markell’s coach, Brett Moore, called his name.

“We’re going to give you the ball for game,” Moore said.

Before a crowd of thousands, 15-year-old Markell sunk a free-throw line jumper to send East Tech to its first state semifinal since 1972, unfazed by the moment.

“I definitely wasn’t nervous, I definitely was ready,” Markell said. “I wanted to shoot the ball as soon as we got out of the timeout.”

Markell prepared himself for this moment years prior. In early childhood, Markell fastened his mini hoop to the door frame, pretending to nail game-winners as he fell to the floor.

From as early as age four, Markell’s love for baseball, football, then basketball acted as his buffer. The youngest of eight siblings – that doesn’t count adopted children – growing up in inner-city Cleveland didn’t make life easy.

“You could say it was impoverished,” Sabrina said after hesitating. “Yeah, that’s the right word.”

Without a hoop of his own, Markell put up shots on a makeshift rim in his backyard. Mark nailed a crate to a tree in his backyard and watched his son shoot for hours and hours. If the crate fell, Mark fastened it to the wood again.

Markell eventually began to play organized sports, a talented closer on the diamond and an undersized but electric guard on the hardwood. Markell’s locks dangled down past his shoulder, leading his opponents to often mistake him for a girl.

“That girl can ball,” they’d say.

When he was 11, Markell wanted his hair cut off; it had been long since he was a baby. Later that day, Mark walked up to balded Markell at the refrigerator, not recognizing his own son.

“Hey, young man, you in the wrong house young man,” Mark said.

Through all of the hardships of his early life, Markell remained upbeat. Always the type to have lots of friends, Markell’s positive demeanor filled with sarcastic jokes was magnetic.

“He makes everybody laugh, he’s just a joy to be around,” Sabrina said.

That positivity pushed him through it all. It pushed him through Markell’s struggles at school. Markell was eventually diagnosed with ADHD. That took five years of Sabrina pushing the school to get him tested; the school board finally sent their psychologist to diagnose Markell.

It pushed him through the realities of growing up in inner-city Cleveland, a hotbed of violent crime and gang activity. Sabrina and Mark did everything they could to give Markell a positive upbringing.

“Even where we lived in the community we lived at, I never made it a point to let him see that, ‘Hey, Markell, we are poor,'” Sabrina said. “If he asked for something or I knew he wanted something, I always tried to get it.”

If Markell wanted new basketball shoes, Sabrina would find a pair at Goodwill, add new shoelaces and clean them until they sparkled. Markell was always grateful.

For high school, Markell went from his home on the west side of Cleveland to a school on the east side, East Tech High School, a move most Clevelanders wouldn’t do. Sabrina wasn’t happy with the services and treatment the west side gave Markell for his ADHD.

Markell was nervous for his first high school game against his school’s rival, Glenville. The nerves quickly evaporated as Markell went from role player to star in just his freshman season, to one of the best high school players in the state of Ohio. He shied away from the media and the spotlight. Markell just wanted to play.

“I’m the shyest dude ever,” Markell said. “If I don’t know you, I’m probably not gonna talk to you. A lot of people call me weird because I’m just to myself.”

All of that came to a screeching halt on April 8, 2016, when Markell’s father was hospitalized after a stroke and passed on April 10, two days before his birthday with his son fielding offers from college basketball powerhouses emblazoned as the state’s player of the year.

Markell remembers the deafening silence walking down the stairs and past the couch on that day. Why didn’t his dad crack a joke? Why couldn’t he have said something?

“If I usually walk down the stairs, he’d say something, anything, say something, make noise, anything and I didn’t hear anything,” Markell said.

Markell didn’t want to play basketball. At that moment, basketball didn’t matter – not the scholarships, not the potential NBA future. His dad wouldn’t be there on signing day. He wouldn’t cheer Markell on in the bleachers in the NCAA Tournament. 

“This is not what your father would want,” Sabrina told Markell.

Markell put his head down and blocked out the pain. Attending a four-year college is a rarity in Cleveland. Soon, he’d be a first-generation college student.

“A lot of the young men in Cleveland and a lot of the grown men in Cleveland, a lot of them don’t get opportunities like this,” Sabrina said. “A lot of them either end up in jail or dead.”

Division I offers piled in. Markell took visits and remained in the spotlight. Nobody knew what went on inside his head. 

Eventually, Markell committed to N.C. State, 569 miles from his home in Cleveland.

Ask Markell about his commitment and he’ll rave about how feeling at home in Raleigh and how much he adores the program. 

But at the time of his father’s passing, Markell was set on Ohio State, a few hours away from home by car. If Markell’s father was alive, he’d have spent his college career in Columbus. After his father passed, Markell knew he couldn’t stay home. He couldn’t play in Ohio without his father at every game. 

“I felt like he would have been here,” Markell said.

Sabrina encouraged her son to branch out and leave Ohio. He had a chance to travel like few from his area had done previously.

More importantly, distance would give Markell a chance to process his father’s death, something the chaos of recruiting didn’t allow. Sabrina doesn’t think her son ever had a chance to grieve. Constantly visiting schools doesn’t allow for much of anything else.

Markell’s initial transition to N.C. State was rocky, with countless hours spent worrying about Cleveland, about home. 

His family took turns traveling down to Raleigh so Markell wouldn’t be alone. He didn’t want to go back to school during his first trip home during winter break. His coaches and family had to talk him out of staying home.

“We not going to leave you down there alone,” Sabrina told her son.

Eventually, Markell found his place and flourished at N.C. State, establishing himself as a top guard in the conference as a junior and taking All-ACC honors as a senior. That clutch gene engendered from bedroom fadeaways never left – Markell drained the game-winner against UNC Greensboro last December.

The pinnacle of Markell’s college career came against Duke during his senior season, where Markell led the Wolfpack to a blowout victory over the Blue Devils.

Before that game, Markell sat in his bedroom, Sabrina lecturing. His teammates, Devon Daniels and D.J. Funderburk, joined the lecture. Sabrina wouldn’t let them lose this one. Markell reassured her.

“Mom, Mom, I gotcha. I heard you.”

Markell poured in a game-high 28 points on that night. Daniels scored 25. Funderburk added 21 points.

Sabrina was always around, always in his room. She made sure he was never alone. He and his teammates always loved her taco dip. She’d make it all the time.

Even when Sabrina couldn’t be physically present, she reminded her son that he was loved. That, even when he missed home and his father the most, his family had his back. She reminded him of the words at the end of every text she sent.

“I’m truly blessed to have a son like you.”

*****

Markell Johnson bounded down the stairs.

His father’s belly-laugh was unmistakable. Mark called home with excellent news: He was bringing home a rabbit and his children were overjoyed.

But that rabbit wasn’t a pet. It was hunted and frozen. It was dinner.

These types of practical jokes were commonplace in the Johnson household with Mark as the most common jokester. Sabrina calls her husband’s style of jokes the  “Oh my god I can’t believe he did that” type.

That positive energy rubbed off on Markell, who spends evenings cracking up his family for hours on end. Generating levity was more than a defense mechanism, it became part of Markell. 

Even at N.C. State, Markell was the one to lighten the mood, to crack a joke amidst a tough practice, to elicit a smile from even the toughest of coaches.

“I know how to be serious, but you don’t have to be serious 24 hours a day,” Markell said. “He [dad] definitely installed that into me and I kind of installed that in some of the guys at N.C. State.”

At N.C. State, Markell needed ways to take his mind off of home; the gym couldn’t provide all the distraction he needed. So, Markell did what most college-aged kids did and picked up landscaping.

Markell marveled at the grandiosity of North Carolina’s houses, nothing like the towering complexes of inner-city Cleveland. One of his former assistant coaches, Thomas Carr, now owns his own landscaping company.

“It’s just so calming to me,” Markell said. “Being outside, you don’t got nobody talking to you on your back or anything like that, nobody telling you to run a play.”

Back in Cleveland, Markell brought his newfound passion home. He planted grass and hung lights in the backyard. His siblings grew tired of Markell’s 3 a.m. drilling. One day when basketball is over, Markell hopes landscaping can be a career.

But for now, Markell has basketball to focus on. Amongst the inherent uncertainty of a global pandemic, one which ended Markell’s chances of making an NCAA Tournament run, Markell is furthering his career in Europe, signing with Beşiktaş in the Turkish League. His contract still has NBA outs if a team were to draft him.

Sabrina doesn’t want to see her son leave across the Atlantic, but she knows this is best for his future. It’s not the NBA, but it’s basketball, it’s an opportunity, one Markell is grateful for as always.

“He accepts the things that he can’t change,” Sabrina said.

Markell’s ultimate focus remains home in Cleveland. He’s been through the plight inner-city kids live every day. They need better programs, more people that relate to the youth. If Markell can make it out, they can too.

“I really want to change the perception of the city,” Markell said.

Markell doesn’t complain. He accepts what he can’t change. But if Markell can make a change, he will make it.

He won’t be quiet.

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