Westmoore's Zac Johnson – Character Counts Presented by Eskridge Honda

By John Tranchina

As someone who plays both on offense and defense, Zac Johnson knows it takes a heightened level of commitment, so the senior is an ideal team leader for his Westmoore football squad.

“It’s very difficult if you don’t put in the work, to be able to go both ways,” said Johnson, who lines up at both safety and wide receiver. “If you don’t put in the conditioning, then you’re going to be exhausted to play on offense, and then it’s going to keep going on and on. Then you’re going to want breaks and that’s going to hurt the team. I want to be able to help our team.”

Johnson believes that by being a good role model, he can demonstrate effective leadership and that will help his team, both now and in the upcoming years after he’s graduated.

“It’s very important to be a leader to these young guys because they’re the future of our program,” he said. “You have to be able to teach them how to play, and how hard to work, so they can become leaders when they are seniors.”

Individually, Johnson expended extra effort this summer to regain some lost footspeed, illustrating yet another lesson for his younger teammates.

“The main focus this year I’ve worked on is probably my speed,” he said. “I’ve grown a little bit and my speed went down, so I had to work harder to get it back up to where it was last year, and I think I improved on that a lot this year. I went to camps, learning the proper forms how to run, and I’ve been going every morning to run around the tracks. It’s just been helping. Stretching more, that helps.”

As for his team, which enjoyed a strong season in 2017, going 8-3 before falling to eventual champion Owasso in the Class 6AI state quarterfinals, Johnson is confident that the Jaguars will surprise a lot of people.

“Everyone doesn’t really see us the way we are,” he said. “Everyone says we lost too many players, ‘You aren’t going to be good,’ but I see us as better. We’re a lot faster than we were last year. We may not be as big, but we’re a lot faster.”