![]() They tried it,” Rachel Johnson said.Īnd for Johnson, basketball became everything. Johnson and her two siblings tried everything from gymnastics to lacrosse to dance. Instead, growing up in Minnesota, her life was sports. Her father, a swimmer from Northwestern, and her mother, a high school basketball player, took her to church for holidays and on special occasions. Johnson didn’t grow up in an religious household. That is something I always reminded myself.” Finding faith God loves me the same whether I made those free throws or I hadn’t. “I just know where my worth is and where my identity is. “My faith helped me in times like that,” Johnson said. But she went up to Roberts and said she was glad it happened to her and not somebody else. Nobody knew what to expect from Johnson the next morning as the team boarded a plane back to Utah. Just being like we could have gone another step further and felt like a lot was on my shoulders.” I think I felt a level of shame and guilt in some way after. She's a fighter."- Michael Voepel March 25, 2023 She saw a clip of Roberts saying she would take Johnson in that situation every night.Ĭoach Lynne Roberts said of Jenna Johnson that she would take the sophomore on the FT line with the game on the line again tomorrow. Johnson retreated to her room as the night calmed and scrolled through Twitter. Everybody wanted her to make those free throws and some people can take things a little too far.” “A lot of athletes, including her, have to block people. “She just couldn’t read the comments anymore,” Rachel Johnson said. They turned off the comments on social media, knowing the onslaught that awaited, and tried to talk about anything else. When the bus pulled into the team hotel, Johnson’s parents escorted her back up to their room, away from the noise. “Her parents were concerned for her,” Roberts said. Many were positive at first, a few NFL players sympathized, but then the cutting ones hit. As the bus silently pulled out of the area - with Johnson’s occasional sniffle cutting through the quiet - she saw the social media messages start to flood her phone. “I ended up being kind and said, ‘I guess I did.’ But yeah, bad question.”Īnd right after the media filed out, Johnson reverted back to sobbing. ![]() ![]() I had actually no confidence?” Johnson said. “I was like what kind of question is that. A reporter came up and asked, “Did you think you were going to make the free throws?” “I think we were all devastated.”Īs the media shuffled in, Johnson quelled the tears momentarily. “It was brutal, to be honest,” Roberts said of the locker room. But her teammates’ words did little to help. This loss, she insisted, didn’t come down to Johnson. Utah guard Issy Palmer reminded her she had missed free throws earlier in the night. Johnson had 10 minutes where she was inconsolable. (Mic Smith | AP) Utah's Jenna Johnson holds back tears and is comforted by coach Lynne Roberts, after missing two free throws late in the second half against LSU in a Sweet 16 college basketball game of the women's NCAA Tournament in Greenville, S.C., Friday, March 24, 2023.īut once everyone was in the locker room, that’s when it really set in. ![]()
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