Player-Coach

Hannah Johnson Looks to Use Life Experience to Become an Elite Coach

By Washington Huskies

March 2^nd, 2019

By Rich Myhre

In five seasons with the University of Washington women’s basketball team, Hannah Johnson has experienced moments of great triumph and joy. Among them, reaching the NCAA Final Four in 2015-16. A year later, a memorable showdown with Stanford in front of a raucous home sellout crowd. Along the way she has been a team leader and a top player while pursuing undergraduate and master’s degrees that are steps to her longtime goal of becoming a college coach.

But success in basketball, as in life, is sometimes accompanied by hardship and heartache. Johnson’s UW years have brought treasured memories and friendships, but also challenges as significant as any she has ever faced. Indeed, challenges that continue to this day.

Johnson, a 6-foot-1 senior forward from Los Angeles, has been receiving treatment for depression since last summer. She believes the disorder first crept into her life years ago and never went away, though she managed to persevere, in part through stubborn denial.

But then last June, she said, “it really exploded.” Some days, she went on, “I felt like a dead weight. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I had no motivation. It got pretty bad.”

Unfortunately, there are no easy or immediate cures for depression, which is a sly, insidious disease that can spend years lurking in the shadows of someone’s life before suddenly and maliciously bursting to the fore. Caught early, and with proper care, it can be managed and even overcome. But when it gets the upper hand, as often happens with people either unable or unwilling to get help, it can be crippling.

Beginning in the summer, “there were times I could barely get up in the morning,” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to play basketball. I hated waking up and I hated being here, and I didn’t know why. It was really hard because I’m never like that. I have a love for life and I love playing basketball, and it was like, what’s going on? I didn’t understand.

“I’m the type of person that if you see me walking around, 99 percent of the time I have a smile on my face. I love life. I love people. I always want to be happy and to be in a great mood. But the last four years I think I’ve been suppressing some things — personal issues and family stuff — that I never really dealt with when I was growing up.”

Over time, Johnson has learned that depression is often linked to genetics — “I have it in my family,” she said — and that traumas and stressful episodes, past and present, are sometimes triggers. Another hard truth is that depression can strike at any time, and with utter indifference to a person’s age, gender or socioeconomic status. Neither do accomplishments or circumstances matter very much. Lowly people get depressed, but so do people at the height of success.

In this latter respect, Johnson’s story is confusing to some people. They wonder, how could a person as blessed as she is ever be depressed?

“People might look at me and say, ‘She has her undergraduate degree and she’s getting a master’s degree. She’s been to a Final Four. She’s playing basketball and getting a free education.’ People will see all that and say, ‘She has everything to be happy about. She has great people around her, great memories, so why is she depressed?’

“What I’ve tried to explain to people is that it’s something I can’t always control. And I don’t completely have the answer as to why it’s happening. As I’ve told people, ‘Do you think I want to be sad my last year of college basketball? If I could have it my way, I’d be in a great mood every day and I’d be enjoying my last year and maybe it’d be my best year.”

But as it turned out, “this has probably been my hardest year. And thank God I’ve had the resources to deal with it.”

When she felt herself being overwhelmed last summer, “I called attention to it. I worked with the doctors. I got a psychologist right away. … I’ve been (proactive) and I’ve been handling it pretty well, but it’s still been very hard.”

Even with an ongoing regimen of counseling and medication, there are occasional setbacks. In January, Johnson sat out the second half of a UW game vs. Colorado because “I almost had a panic attack.”

That was a low point, though most days are better. And it helps knowing that others have suffered as she has. When she began speaking publicly about her struggle, acquaintances were soon approaching to share their own stories.

“I won’t mention names,” she said, “but there’ve been people that I wouldn’t have known (were depressed) at all. I had no clue. But for them to come to me, I think that’s helped. Because when you’re battling depression, you can feel that you’re weird and different. And at times you can feel that you’re alone.”

Beyond the solace of hearing from others, the greatest gift has been the compassionate support of her UW coaches and teammates. On a team that embraces the notion of family, the other Huskies have surrounded her with patience, kindness and loving acceptance.

“My teammates and my coaches have helped tremendously,” she said. “I sat down and I told them, and I got pretty vulnerable. I said, ‘This is what I’m dealing with and it’s really hard.’

“It really helps when the people around you all the time are on your side. I’ve had a bunch of support and I’m the type of person that needs that. Because as much as I might want to do it on my own, I can’t be afraid to ask for help.”

UW second-year head coach Jody Wynn, who is in her 23rd year of coaching, believes that emotional disorders “are becoming more and more prevalent, and that’s with young people in general (and not just athletes). So when I see a student-athlete struggling with a mental-health issue, first of all I have to assure them that it’s not uncommon.”

The next step, Wynn said, is to stress “that it’s OK to be vulnerable.” As coaches and athletes, she explained, “we’re supposed to always be tough, we’re supposed to always be mentally focused, and we’re supposed to always be tougher than our opponents. But sometimes it’s OK to be vulnerable for that moment, and to allow your teammates and coaches to be there and help you through a difficult time.

“In Hannah’s particular case, we’ve surrounded her with the necessary resources that we have here at the University of Washington to help her battle through and overcome and succeed through her challenges. Our athletic department and our sports medicine department are incredible for the support they give our student-athletes, and we’ve been providing Hannah with outside resources along with a family of people here that are her support system.

“To me,” she added, “Hannah is a woman of courage and strength. Initially she probably thought of herself as a coward and weak (to admit she was hurting). But being able to speak up about how she was feeling and then to seek help is an incredible sign of courage and strength, and that’s what she embodies.”

Because of her off-court struggles, Johnson’s senior season has no doubt been less than she’d hoped. A year ago, she played in all 30 UW games, averaging 24.3 minutes, 7.7 points and a team-high 5.4 rebounds. She led the Huskies in double-doubles (four). In consecutive games against Washington State, she had a combined 26 points and 33 rebounds.

This season she has again played in every game (27 so far), but her averages have dropped to 17.8 minutes, 4.6 points and 3.9 rebounds.

The last two seasons have also been difficult for the entire UW team. After reaching national prominence with a trip to the Final Four in 2015-16, followed by a Sweet 16 appearance in 2016-17, the program has been rebuilding through Wynn’s first two seasons. A year ago Washington finished 7-23 overall and 1-17 in the Pacific-12 Conference, and this season those records are only marginally better to date at 9-18 and 2-13.

As a team, Johnson acknowledged, “it’s been pretty challenging. Obviously you come from the first three years of being pretty successful (she had back surgery and redshirted as a true freshman in 2014-15), and then, boom, it changes completely. It’s been hard, but what I really value are the relationships I’ve built with my teammates. It’s pretty crazy to see how everybody likes each other on this team. Literally, every single girl likes each other and we spend a lot of time together.

“To me, that’s more important (than the won-lost records). In the future I’m not going to remember how many games I lost or what the record was. It’ll be the memories I’ve built with these girls.”

Johnson will leave Washington with an undergraduate degree in gender, women and sexuality studies, which she received last June, and a master’s degree in intercollegiate athletic leadership, which she will complete this coming June. She then hopes to play professional basketball in the United States or overseas for several seasons, or “until I don’t love it anymore.”

Once she retires from playing, her goal is to coach at the collegiate level, first as an assistant coach and later as a head coach.

“When I was younger,” Johnson said, “I had a lot of female coaches who trained me and mentored me. I had a coach who did that in sixth grade and I thought, ‘I want to do something like this someday.’ As a kid, I really looked up to females who were strong and were there to help me, and that’s been a dream of mine since then.”

To get a taste of coaching, Johnson spent this basketball season as a volunteer assistant at Seattle’s Lakeside High School. The head coach, and Johnson’s mentor for her UW graduate program, was Mia Augustavo-Fisher, the wife of UW assistant coach Michelle Augustavo-Fisher.

“Hannah’s a great person,” Fisher said. “She’s a competitor on and off the court, and with her experience of playing at an extremely high level it makes her very relatable. The kids automatically gravitate towards her. She’s a great role model and a positive influence on all of our players, and that’s why she was an important piece of our program. Whenever she showed up to practice and games, and if she had any kind of input, the kids were all eyes and ears. They were extremely excited to have her around.”

Beyond her basketball knowledge, Johnson showed a willingness “to build bonds with the kids,” Fisher added. “In my experience of coaching at the collegiate level, some coaches are very qualified and have a lot of accolades, but they forget about the relationship piece. I think that’s one of the most important things you can have, and it’s one of Hannah’s strengths. So I think she has all the tools and skills to be very successful in the future.”

With her UW career likely down to its final few games, Johnson is able to reflect on what has been a life-changing collegiate journey.

“People always want everything to be good,” she said. “They want it to be sunshine and rainbows, but in reality that’s now how life is. For me, these last five years have been hard, and this last year has been really, really hard. There’ve been so many times that I just wanted to give up and quit. But I couldn’t give up and quit, and it’s because this university has given me so much and the people here are so special.

“I love these girls, I love these coaches and I love this school. If you ask anybody who knows me, they’ll say I bleed purple and gold. One day I want to come back and work here. I want to take Washington to another Final Four and even to a national championship. That’s my dream because I love this place. The University of Washington is amazing. It’s made me into the woman I am and it’s the reason I’m going to be successful in the future.

“These five years have prepared me to face any struggle. They’ve prepared me to face any challenge. And they’ve prepared me to be happy and successful in life.”

Likewise, through her determination, passion and extraordinary courage, she has made her own mark on a university and a basketball team that will endure.

“Her heart and her genuine love for her teammates and coaches is evident every day,” Wynn said. “She’s just a remarkable young woman. She’d do anything for every single one of us, and she’s just been a joy to have in our program.