The Arizona Wildcats’ new football recruit has just made history.
The Arizona Wildcats football program’s new recruit has just made history. Their new recruit, My-King Johnson, is the first active openly gay scholarship player in major college football history. While that is noteworthy, Johnson tweets, he’s just focused on playing football for the Wildcats.
I'm just here to play football.
— My-King Johnson (@kingj9943) February 25, 2017
“I’m a very honest person,” he told the Arizona Daily Star. “I just don’t see how I could be living an honest, truthful life and have that in the background.”
The 6’4, 225-pound defensive end was the star player at Tempe High School and after his tremendous season, he was offered a scholarship to play at Arizona for head coach Rich Rodriguez.
The All-Arizona player is set to make an impact for an Arizona team in need of help on both sides of the ball. With his physical stature and aggressive play, it will be interesting to watch him improve over his time in college.
Johnson had offers from USC, Arizona State, UCLA, Arizona, and Oregon. He was verbally committed to UCLA before ultimately switching to Arizona after an in-house visit from head coach Rich Rodriguez. The major factor for his decision was that he wanted to stay in his home state of Arizona.
In his last high school season, Johnson had 89 tackles (19 of which were for losses), 21.5 sacks, 3 forced fumbles, and eight quarterback hurries. And in 2015, Johnson had 22 sacks. Johnson has proven that he is worthy of the scholarship and is a truly incredible talent. Johnson did confirm that he will play defensive end in college.
Next: Best college quarterback born in every state
Johnson said he was 12 when he told his family and friends that he was gay. During the recruiting process, he came out to defensive line coach Vince Amey. His response was matter of fact in saying he wanted him to be a part of the Wildcat family.