After guiding the Corning-Painted Post football team to its first berth in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association semifinals last season, Mike Johnston Jr. is back for his fifth season as the Hawks’ head coach.
Johnston, 57, coached Corning’s boys basketball and softball teams to Section 4 championships earlier this year. The Hawks won state softball titles under Johnston in 2019 and 2024, and this year’s team made it to the NYSPHSAA AAA final four.
He coached Corning West football from 1994 to 2009, and was part of four sectional championships as Elmira’s offensive coordinator before taking the same position at Corning in 2019. Johnston is in his 36th year coaching.
Question: What would you change about high school football if you could?
Answer: I don’t know, I think times have changed unfortunately. We have good numbers right now. We’re at 46, but that’s with 14 sophomores up. We figured over the summer returners we’d be somewhere mid-20s, 30s. We may end up there. Who knows? But I doubt it.
But I just think there’s so many other things kids are interested in. We as adults, I want you to be busy doing some things. Everybody wants to go work, play video games, they want to do things we never had the opportunity to do as kids. That’s great, I’m happy for them. But we’re teaching kids about commitment and with that goes communication and I think it’s a lost art. Now we’ve made it so simple that we send a text or we just don’t message at all.
My father and I have talked about this forever. The more avenues we give people communication-wise the less they take advantage of it, with social media and meeting in person and email and phone contact, immediate gratification on your cellphones. There’s no excuse. Again, we’re teaching them life lessons about communication and commitment.
Q: What are you most proud of when it comes to Corning football?
A: I don’t know if people really realize what we’ve been able to do as a staff. Had an opportunity, was at Corning West and had some good people there. Went to Elmira and we had a great run and made it to the final four there.
Then I came back and George Bacalles gave me an opportunity to become the offensive coordinator and Tim Hughes had a big part in that as well. I’m not going to fail to mention Bob McGee and Matt Rhodes and Pat Clark and all they’ve offered. They love football. I want to surround myself with people that love it as much as I do, and they do.
We’ve created a culture here. We expect to win. It doesn’t matter what grade you’re in, and I speak of this with all of my sports because you don’t line up against the guy across from you and say, ‘Hey, what grade are you in?’ The game doesn’t care what grade you’re in or how old you are or whatever it may be. You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to compete. That’s what life’s all about. And we’re proud of that.
We know we’re going to have our hands full this year. It’s just a different group, but we’re going to work hard.
Q: What have you learned from your dad, Mike Sr., when it comes to coaching?
A: The thing with my dad was when he was initially coaching, was the head coach at Notre Dame 11-man way back before Coach D (Mike D’Aloisio) took over and my dad stuck with just basketball, was simplicity. Keep the game simple, stupid.
I remember that he used to run Lou Holtz’s the ‘grass is greener’ veer offense. He had five run plays and two pass plays. They ran a 5-2 defense and went one way or another and had a couple blitzes here and there, but they were simple. He had a lot to do to improve their program and I think he did that.
I’m proud of him because he’s 79 years old and he’s got the heart of a teenager and he’s still the most competitive person that I know. He doesn’t want to see the program die at Notre Dame and his perseverance and trying to make it work with kids who have maybe never played football before, and now they’re going to go and compete in 8-man at a varsity level with a bunch of eighth-, ninth-, 10th-graders. That’s hard. People need to give them some grace and I think they’ll see some development as they move forward.
Q: A moment that stood out or lesson you learned from playing at Notre Dame?
A: I was fortunate that in my playing days I first got to play for my father at the JV level and he had some really good assistants. Then at the varsity level I get to play for Coach D, who’s a legend, and coach (Dick) Craft, Jeff Sobkowski and coach (Ron) Norman. There’s just so many good people out there that I was able to surround myself with.
I try to continue to do that with the people on our staff. It’s a culture. You build that and success breeds success. I was lucky.
When you think of it, I started 36 years ago as a modified coach (at Horseheads) right out of college, working with Jim Jacobus, and Joe Matejka was the head coach and George Gilbert was the line coach and Paul Berbary. There were so many guys. I took something from all of them and tried to nurture it and put it into my own programs and create culture.
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This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Q&A: Mike Johnston Jr. discusses Corning football and influences on his coaching career
Reporting by Andrew Legare, Elmira Star-Gazette / Elmira Star-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
