It’s been two weeks since Marcus Johnson learned he’d been named the head coach of Indian Creek boys basketball, and already he’s sunk deep into summer preparations for the 2019-2020 season.
Johnson, who served two years as assistant to former coach Josh Pratt (now at Archbishop Spalding), begins his foray into head coaching the Eagles by taking over the school’s summer basketball development camp — as well as the upcoming summer league at Annapolis Area Christian School.
“I’m still barely touching the water. Dipping my toes in, haven’t even jumped in the pool yet,” Johnson said. “I’m working my way in.”
Though taking on Indian Creek will be Johnson’s first head coaching job at any level, a career devoted to playing — and coaching Amateur Athletic Union ball as well as educating — put him on the path to this moment now.
Already, Johnson knows what he has to do.
“The biggest challenge is building on what we had last year. … Getting the guys to believe in what I’m bringing to the table, trusting in what I have planned for us moving forward,” Johnson said. “And getting guys in (here). Other coaches out there have more experience as far as recruiting and everything so trying to get families to understand that I’m here for the best interests of their child.”
In athletic director Tyler Larkin’s eyes, Johnson was the slum-dunk pick, not only because of his own preferences to keep things running smoothly in the program, but because the players wanted him, too.
“Being part of Pratt’s staff for two years, he had the backing of the kids immediately,” Larkin said. “The kids loved him as assistant coach. When the job opened, in the kids’ eyes, he was ultimately the front-runner for them.”
When Johnson was an integral part of the Annapolis High teams that claimed back-to-back Anne Arundel County boys’ basketball titles in 1999 and 2000, he’d never looked back at his coaches on the bench and thought to himself: “There lies my future.”
The two-time Capital Gazette All-County first team pick eclipsed 1,000 points as a Panther, setting a county career record in 2000 for 3-pointers (167). Even though Johnson had dabbled in coaching AAU with the Baltimore Stars — and would again — his main focus as a high school player was continue competing at a high level, as long as the universe allowed him to.
He’d furthered his career at the Division I level at College of Charleston, which captured the Great Alaska Shootout crown and made one National Invitation Tournament appearance. Johnson worked his way up to team captain.
Even once college ended, the Annapolis native wasn’t ready to hang up his sneakers. He played for the Pittsburgh Xplosion in the American Basketball Association in 2005. Not long after that, coaching began to pull him in.
Johnson coached a 13-under team that finished in third place in the Boo Williams AAU tournament, then took up coaching at the Boys and Girls Club in New Haven, Conn., his first taste of any sort of head coaching.
“I got the experience and the chance to see how things work,” Johnson said. “That’s when I realized this was something I’d look into, progress toward.”
When Johnson migrated back down to his home region in 2014, coaching AAU in Maryland, he’d soon receive a tip from Southern basketball coach Will Maynard that would finally bring Johnson back into the high school basketball world.
Maynard informed Johnson that the new Indian Creek coach, Josh Pratt, had a need for good assistants.
“I think he developed great relationships with the players. The players respect him not only as a coach but as a former player that played at the Division I level,” Pratt said. “What he brought to my staff was a certain skill set. He was able to develop the kids skill-wise.”
During Johnson’s two seasons as assistant coach, Indian Creek compiled a 34-16 record. The Eagles were co-regular season MIAA B Conference champions in 2017-18 and flipped a losing beginning to the season into a postseason berth.
Johnson and Pratt ran the team on a similar wavelength.
“I liked how he felt the game,” Johnson said of Pratt. “He’d make adjustments for the team and I learned a lot just from him looking at those type of things. He has years of experience.”
Johnson, who is maintaining the same coaching staff, doesn’t have to do what most new coaches would — setting meetings with his new players, starting from scratch on game plans. With guard-forwards Khalil Williams and Bryce Collier graduated, Johnson already knows rising seniors Khiyon Washington and Sammy Carter will take their place, adapting into their new roles as leaders.
Four freshmen played for the Eagles last season, two pretty frequently. With youth in abundance, Johnson plans to improve upon last season’s run in which Indian Creek made its way to the MIAA B conference quarterfinals.
“I want us to get up and down because we are a small team,” Johnson said. “I want them to have a little more freedom on the court, not necessarily have a bunch of sets for them to run and overthink the game. I want them to be able to think and react to the game, but at the same time, there will be some pieces put in place for situational purposes.”
Coaching has been a lesson in patience for Johnson. As a player, he carried responsibility for only himself; by knowing his own abilities, he was able to push himself and place himself in situations that the game required.
But by working with a team, he’s working with ingredients that are presented to him, players with sets of skills that are not his own. He has to scroll back the film, back before he was a high-level college and professional athlete.
“You want guys to do things they can’t do because you played at a certain level. You have to remember that ‘I played at Division I level, and I wasn’t ready for that level at a high school age either,'” Johnson said. “I’ve got to rewind it back, know this is what these guys’ strong points are rather than harping on their weaknesses and then build on their weaknesses as well, making sure that they’re working on skill development.”
As an “Annapolis kid,” a frequent contender in the Annapolis Summer Basketball League, as well as a resource teacher at Annapolis Middle, Johnson has his roots firmly planted in the area — an asset, Pratt said, to not only recruiting future Indian Creek athletes but to cultivating a trusting presence in in the Eagles community.
“He was an old school ball player and that’ll translate to his team now. He’s more than ready to take over the reigns,” Pratt said. “He comes from a basketball, sports family. … He’s very well known and very well-respected. That’s the idea of keeping the program, right? He knows he wants to make it better than what I had. I only had it for two short years, but take what we’d started and keep building from it.”
