Kyle Tucker/SEC Country
Stephen Johnson II answers questions after practice
LEXINGTON, Ky. — He snaps his fingers once.
Click.
It’s a fleeting sound with a segment of time on either side. The noise usually is meaningless, but not when Stephen Johnson II makes it.
One click, one instant, changed everything for Kentucky’s second-team quarterback.
He suffered from Tourette’s syndrome as a kid. He can’t remember a time in his childhood when he didn’t have it, but he was diagnosed at 8 years old. His eyes blinked too fast. He hiccuped when he breathed. He tried to hold in the symptoms at school, restricting his tics to a noise that sounded like he was coughing with his mouth closed.
Then one day he woke up and, in a snap, it was gone.
***
Parents are only as happy as their least happy child, said Stephen Johnson, for whom Johnson II is named. The younger Johnson is the oldest of Paula and Stephen Johnson’s three children. During a four-year period in their son’s life, happiness was hard to come by.
Tourette’s syndrome, according to the Tourette Association of America, is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects one out of every 160 children in the U.S. between the ages of 5 and 17. Tics may be transient but some can continue into adulthood.
Treatment is possible but no cure exists.
After Johnson II’s Little League baseball coach, also a special education teacher, noticed his eye and mouth twitches, his parents started looking for answers.
“We started to wonder, “Oh how long has this been here,” Paula Johnson says.
He was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome shortly after and prescribed different medications, some for ailments the boy didn’t have.
“Why would we give this child ADHD medication when he doesn’t have ADHD?” Stephen Johnson used to ask. “He’s an A student, he’s a great kid. Why would he get all these medications? That was really discouraging.”
After fourth, fifth and sixth opinions, the Johnsons decided on holistic herbal remedies and, above all, prayer.
Mother, father and son exude faith. It’s ingrained in how they think and respond. Paula Johnson understands it’s not for everybody, but the family is comfortable in its convictions.
It’s the only way they know how to understand the following account from the quarterback’s father: “When Stephen got on his hands and knees and asked God to heal him, he woke up the next day and said, ‘I am healed.’”
***
Johnson II took the long way to Lexington. Grambling State offered him a scholarship after high school in Southern California, and he earned the starting gig his redshirt freshman season. But a high-ankle sprain ended his year early, and he wasn’t able to earn back his job.
He returned to California and enrolled at College of the Desert, just more than one hour’s drive from his hometown of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. It was there that coach Jack Steptoe, who was aware of Johnson II’s high school career and was the one who had referred him to then-Grambling State coach Doug Williams, gave Johnson II control of the passing game and his next shot to prove himself as a high-caliber quarterback.
Steptoe considers Johnson II the best quarterback he’s ever coached — both in skill and attitude.
“He always believed he could win regardless what the score was,” Steptoe says, never knowing Johnson II had suffered from Tourette’s syndrome.
As a kid, Johnson II felt safe on the football field. Just as he believes prayer zapped the tics from his body, football provided a similarly unexplained cure. So did baseball, basketball and piano. His dad wonders if his son’s mind was too busy to show the signs of Tourette’s syndrome that a quiet classroom exploited. His son always played the focal position in every sport: Shortstop and pitcher in baseball, point guard in basketball, quarterback in football.
All positions that require the most thought.
“It would be weird because I would recognize it right before practice, and during practice it would stop,” Johnson II said. “Then as soon as practice was done,” he snapped his fingers, “it would start up again. I didn’t know why that was.
“It was miraculous almost.”
***
Johnson II is a world removed from Tourette’s syndrome. He hasn’t had a tic since before high school.
“We used to ask Stephen all the time: ‘How do you feel, how do you feel, how do you feel?’” his dad says. “And my wife used to say, ‘Stop asking him how he feels. He feels great. Look at him.’
“We had to stop asking him because he was doing all of the things a 14,15, 16 year old should be doing. Having fun, going out on dates, going to movies, being with his buddies and going to the beach. We had to kind of get those thoughts out of our head. When Stephen said he was healed, he was healed.”
Now the 6-foot-2 signal caller has a new obstacle in front of him: He wants to start. But there’s no quarterback competition heading into UK’s Sept. 3 season opener against Southern Miss. Sophomore Drew Barker will start.
“My goal is to have (Johnson II) be able to lead the offense and have exactly zero transition between quarterbacks, if that has to happen, whatever the situation,” UK quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw, who recruited Johnson II, said.
But like Steptoe said, Johnson II believes he can win no matter the score.
“Me and Drew compete every day,” he says. “They’ve obviously given him the No. 1 job but I’m going to keep working at him, keep him on his toes.”
He knows it can happen in a snap, a moment in time when everything can change.
“It was definitely challenging growing up having those things,” he says, “but I do feel like I can accomplish anything now.”
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