Track and field: Huntley’s Johnson sisters grow by leaps and bounds

HUNTLEY – When Dominique Johnson started working on the triple jump a year ago, she was a natural, like a duck taking to water.

Alex Johnson, her older sister by two years and an accomplished long jumper, not so much.

“It clicked for Dominique immediately,” said Alex Johnson, a junior on Huntley’s girls track and field team and the defending Class 3A long jump state champion. “She loved it immediately and knew what was going on. I didn’t get it at all. I wasn’t going to do it at all.”

But Alex’s coach, her father Alvin Johnson, would not let her give up on the triple jump. While she competed in the long jump, she kept working on triple jump. At one point, Alex was willing to let her little sister shine the most in triple jump, but that has changed.

“Now I’m starting to get it and I have to beat her,” Alex says, smiling. “At first, I was good with second. Now I have to beat her.”

The Johnson sisters each leaped to a Class 3A individual title at the Illinois Top Times Indoor Classic on March 26 in Bloomington. The meet is not an IHSA-sanctioned event, but is recognized as the indoor state meet.

Dominique Johnson, a freshman, won the triple jump (40 feet, 9½ inches), with Alex Johnson second (40-7) and teammate Melissa Aninagyei-Bonsu fourth (37-10½). Alex Johnson won the long jump (19-4¼, almost her outdoor winning jump last season), ahead of Prairie Ridge’s Rylee Lydon (18-3¼) and Dominique Johnson (17-9½).

Alex and Dominique Johnson medaled in the 4x100 with Aninagyei-Bonsu and Vicky Evtimov. Dominique Johnson also medaled in the 4x400 with Sammi Campanellli, Evtimov and Jessie Ozzauto.

The Red Raiders and coach Jason Monson could contend for a team trophy (top-three finish) at the IHSA Girls Track and Field State Meet in May.

In their genes

As the daughters of NCAA Division I athletes, Alex and Dominique Johnson more or less were destined to be athletes.

Alvin attended East St. Louis Senior, where he played football and competed in track. He did both sports in college at Louisville, where he played for former Cardinals football coach Howard Schnellenberger.

Yolanda Johnson graduated from East St. Louis Lincoln and played soccer at DePaul, then later joined the California Quake of the Independent Women’s Football League.

“I was an athlete, so I was hoping that they would be athletes,” Alvin Johnson said. “My wife and I work out all the time. When they were young, 4 or 5, there was a 2-mile course that we would get them to run with us.

“I thought they would be fast, but I didn’t know they would be superhuman fast or state fast or national fast. I thought we could make them pretty good jumpers. From Day 1, we thought this is what we’re going to do.”

And the girls loved it.

“I’ve always enjoyed it,” Dominique Johnson said. “We’ve done track our entire lives. It’s always been really fun for us. We were running track in third grade, we had track in elementary school.”

When they moved to Huntley three years ago, they added the jumps along with sprints in track at Marlowe Middle School. Now they compete as teammates, but also as friendly rivals in the two jumps.

“Even before we ran track, we were always an active family,” Alex Johnson said. “I remember when we were young, doing drills in our driveway. We were always active, even if we weren’t running.”

Alvin Johnson is not sure his daughters grasp the magnitude of what they are doing.

“They’re so young. I don’t think they know the numbers they’re hitting (and what they mean),” he said.

Winning a puppy

Alvin was working in human resources for a construction company when the family moved from Nevada to Huntley three years ago. He did not really want to get a dog, but made a deal with Dominique, then in the sixth grade, that if she hit 16-0 in long jump she could get a puppy.

It seemed like a safe bet for Alvin. That distance would have gotten sixth place in last year’s Fox Valley Conference Meet. But when he arrived at the meet, just after the long jump had concluded, some excited woman said to him, “Some girl gets to get a puppy.”

Dominique made the 16-0 on the nose and the Johnsons now have a 3-year-old Chihuahua-terrier mix named Bolt, after Jamaican world champion Usain Bolt.

Only Neuqua Valley’s Riley Ammenhauser (40-11½) had a better triple jump at last year’s outdoor state meet. The top eight jumpers there were seniors, so the Johnsons could find their toughest competition right under their own roof.

“Since we started doing triple jump last year I’ve always been better than Alex,” Dominique Johnson said. “That was my goal to stay better than Alex, not let her beat me. Alex has always been better in long jump.”

The girls enjoy the competition.

“We’ve competed working out together our entire lives,” Alex Johnson said. “It’s always been a little competition between us. We’re not new to competing against each other.”

But they also know how to offer each other helpful tips from working so closely with their father. Alvin quit his job a year ago to concentrate on coaching his daughters.

“We’re used to recording each other and looking at the recording and showing each other what to fix,” Dominique Johnson said. “We do that with our dad all the time.”

Getting creative

The foyer in the Johnsons’ home has several strips of blue tape on the tile floor. It serves as their winter runway as the girls often take off in the kitchen and leap onto mattresses, working on both height and form.

“We do some of the craziest things,” Alvin said. “We find a way to train indoors somehow. The reason we think they’re successful is that we persevere. We don’t look for a reason not to succeed.”

If the girls cannot get to school to lift weights – doing squats, deadlifts, lunges, bench presses and pull-ups, along with various other lifts – they do it in their basement.

“We get creative there, too,” Dominique Johnson said. “We like to discover new things so we don’t get bored.”

Next level

Alex Johnson’s state championship last season grabbed the attention of D-I schools, and the recruitment likely only will intensify this summer heading into her senior year.

She has made unofficial visits to Notre Dame, Baylor and Wisconsin.

Naturally, Alvin hopes that some school, in 2025, will have both his daughters on the same team.

“Hopefully colleges will look at them and say, ‘The little sister’s better than the big sister, let’s get the big sister,’ " Alvin Johnson said, laughing.

Alex Johnson is happy to be the older sister, knowing her decision may have less pressure.

“I get to pick wherever I go, that’s the good thing about being the first sister,” she said. “I can go wherever I want. Maybe she’ll follow.”