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ESPN - How Garrett Johnson returned to basketball
This truly is a wonderful story. The perseverance and drive to get back on the court. Three and a half years between competitive basketball games due to Covid and the tumor. George Washington giving him a chance and a scholarship. Him having early success through the first couple of games. I wish this kid nothing but success.
The morning of his collegiate debut, six months after his ninth round of chemotherapy, Garrett Johnson stayed quiet.
He didn't listen to music. He wasn't chatty with his teammates. He simply went about his day, reflecting on the past two years of his life and his recovery from a desmoid tumor -- "noncancerous growths that occur in the connective tissue," per the Mayo Clinic website -- in his hip that nearly ended his basketball career.
"I'm not going to lie to you, I was nervous," said Johnson, who scored 21 points (5-for-7 from the 3-point line) for George Washington in its 89-44 win over Stonehill on Nov. 6. He also scored 15 points against William & Mary on Saturday, and takes the floor again against Hofstra on Tuesday night at home (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+).
"But also, at the end of the day, what I kept telling myself was, 'I've been through a lot of real life things in the last couple of years and this is a basketball game and it's something I've done my whole life and it's something that I love doing.' This, for me, is the fun stuff. It's what I dreamed of, for two years, of getting back to doing."
The journey for Johnson, a 6-foot-8 forward, began in 2021, when he felt an odd tightness in his hip. The pandemic had shut down his senior season at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, but he stayed in shape by playing pickup basketball around town. The pressure lingered, however, and the pain only intensified over months.
His mother took him to her chiropractor, assuming he just had a stubborn knot in his leg. The woman who worked on her son, however, seemed concerned.
"She said, 'This is not a knot,'" Johnson's mother, Shubha, recalled. "She said, 'Something is up here. This is something else.'"
So Johnson's parents took him to a doctor for an MRI and CT scan. The doctor called back hours later and told them that their son had a rare, benign tumor in his hip. That phone call came on March 1, 2021, months before Johnson, who had committed to Princeton, was due to start his collegiate career.
"All of a sudden, I wasn't thinking about basketball anymore," Johnson said. "I was thinking, 'Do I have cancer? What does that look like?' I was thinking about life and death. That crossed my mind at that point."
He didn't listen to music. He wasn't chatty with his teammates. He simply went about his day, reflecting on the past two years of his life and his recovery from a desmoid tumor -- "noncancerous growths that occur in the connective tissue," per the Mayo Clinic website -- in his hip that nearly ended his basketball career.
"I'm not going to lie to you, I was nervous," said Johnson, who scored 21 points (5-for-7 from the 3-point line) for George Washington in its 89-44 win over Stonehill on Nov. 6. He also scored 15 points against William & Mary on Saturday, and takes the floor again against Hofstra on Tuesday night at home (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+).
"But also, at the end of the day, what I kept telling myself was, 'I've been through a lot of real life things in the last couple of years and this is a basketball game and it's something I've done my whole life and it's something that I love doing.' This, for me, is the fun stuff. It's what I dreamed of, for two years, of getting back to doing."
The journey for Johnson, a 6-foot-8 forward, began in 2021, when he felt an odd tightness in his hip. The pandemic had shut down his senior season at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, but he stayed in shape by playing pickup basketball around town. The pressure lingered, however, and the pain only intensified over months.
His mother took him to her chiropractor, assuming he just had a stubborn knot in his leg. The woman who worked on her son, however, seemed concerned.
"She said, 'This is not a knot,'" Johnson's mother, Shubha, recalled. "She said, 'Something is up here. This is something else.'"
So Johnson's parents took him to a doctor for an MRI and CT scan. The doctor called back hours later and told them that their son had a rare, benign tumor in his hip. That phone call came on March 1, 2021, months before Johnson, who had committed to Princeton, was due to start his collegiate career.
"All of a sudden, I wasn't thinking about basketball anymore," Johnson said. "I was thinking, 'Do I have cancer? What does that look like?' I was thinking about life and death. That crossed my mind at that point."