Defender uses family experiences on team

By Joel Petterson

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

If Estelle Johnson looks comfortable sharing the ball with her 10 teammates, it isn’t a coincidence. Estelle is one of 10 siblings, so sharing comes pretty naturally to her.

Johnson grew up in Fort Collins, Colo., sharing a house with her parents, Jerry and Djeneba, and her five brothers and four sisters. If it sounds a little cramped, it was. There were bunk beds for the kids in every bedroom, and even as the third-youngest child, Estelle didn’t get her own room until she came to college. But rooms weren’t the only things shared in the house.

photo

Photo by Adam Buhler

Senior defender Estelle Johnson is one of ten children in her family. "I'm probably the least athletic in my family," Johnson joked.

“The worst part about it was that I never got my own clothes,” Johnson, a senior defender, said. “Every single time I had an outfit picked out, my sister would steal the shirt, and then there would be a brawl to see who got it.”

Fortunately, that was the worst it got. Johnson and her siblings grew up extremely close to each other, partly because of their shared love of sports. Most afternoons were spent playing soccer in the backyard with makeshift goals on the fences.

“The neighbor used to get mad because we’d break the fence almost every other day,” Johnson said.

Estelle’s older sister, Esther Johnson, said the older siblings used to playfully tease Estelle for being skinnier than her sisters.

“She didn’t like that as a kid, but it didn’t make her any less of an amazing soccer player,” Esther said.

All of the Johnson kids played soccer recreationally, but many went on to pursue different sports. Estelle’s siblings have played football, volleyball and basketball at the collegiate level. Jerry Johnson never forced any of the kids to play sports, he said, but it was rather a domino effect after the oldest son, Damion, began playing soccer at a young age.

“There was a certain amount of momentum that built up from one child to the other,” Jerry said. “They were all natural at it.”

Jerry was also an avid sports player while growing up in Washington. After high school, he traveled overseas with the Peace Corps. Later he spent seven years in Mali, where he met Djeneba. Jerry had one kid and Djeneba had two, and the couple had seven more together after moving to Fort Collins.

But supporting a family of 12 wasn’t always easy, especially with 10 kids constantly playing sports. Sacrifices were necessary for the family to get by.

“They couldn’t have a lot of the material things that their friends had,” said Jerry.

So when Estelle begged her father to take her to a club soccer tryout when she was 10, he was reluctant. But she tried out and made the team. Through working with coaches and hitching rides with other families, she was able to play with the squad.

“I’d bike to practice every day and I’d ride to games with a teammate or something,” Estelle said. “We definitely did a lot of carpooling.”

Later, an individual sponsor came through to help cover her club soccer expenses. Many of the Johnson kids benefited from sponsors who supported their club sports endeavors.

“We’ve been really blessed with having people see our situations and know that we have potential,” Esther said.

Each kid played three or four different sports, according to their father. But Jerry still managed to make it to nearly every single event his kids participated in. One particular Saturday, he traveled to seven different games in two different cities to watch all of his children play. Estelle’s mother, however, didn’t enjoy watching the games at all. Estelle said her mother has been to four of her games during her entire athletic career.

“She gets really scared that we’re going to get hurt,” Estelle said.

Djeneba concentrated on keeping the kids in line at home. Jerry said she was the one responsible for keeping order among all the kids.

“We had zero tolerance for any of the kids getting mad at each other very seriously,” Jerry said. “Overall, there was absolutely no problem.”

The close bond encouraged in the family remains strong. Even with all the kids moved out of the home, Jerry still speaks to each one nearly every day, and the kids are all in constant contact with one another. Estelle said catching up with family can quickly turn into a web of three-way calls and putting people on hold.

“It gets really chaotic,” she said.

But it is a chaos that has supported Estelle t hroughout her life. She and her siblings are aware of how imperative their family has been to their success.

“All of us have learned from each other,” Esther said. “We know we’re very very lucky to have each other and to be as close as we are.”

Despite her family’s struggles, Estelle wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“When you have that much of a support system,” she said, “it’s hard not to love it.”

— — Edited by Samantha Foster

Advertise Here

Comments

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.

Advertisement