Kim Johnson

Kim Johnson could have written the script for last weekend's Ivy League Track and Field Championships.

In a situation that has become second nature to the senior Co-captain in her four years at Harvard, Johnson stood outside the cage, watching the other finalists throw in the shot put competition--grinning easily, commenting occasionally, and gently shaking her arms in preparation for her turn.

Three times the 5' 10" brunette stepped into the circle and took a deep breath. Then three times she crouched low, cradling the 8 lb. 13 oz. lead ball in her right hand on her shoulder and unhesitatingly whirling through the circle, lofting the shot further than everyone else.

When the event was over Johnson was hailed as the clear winner--with a new meet record to hoot.

"How's you do?" a teammate asked her a few minutes later in the bleachers.

"Lousy," Johnson answered with a laugh, "But I won."

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Throwing and winning is nothing new to Kim Johnson, who has rarely tasted defeat in the eight years she has been throwing the discuss and putting the shot. In fact, even her entry into the decidedly unglamorous world of field events was a success of sorts.

"I was originally a sprinter, long jumper and high jumper in high school, but I developed shin splints so bad I could barely walk," Johnson explains. "So I got really mad about it one day and I went back to where the shot putters were working out and I said. 'Show me how to throw his damn thing." Then I threw it and everyone's jaws dropped, so I thought I had really screwed up. But the said, 'No, Kim--no one has ever thrown it that far before!'"

Johnson naturally took the school record soon afterwards, as well as "a few MVP awards" in the nearby Cape Anne League. The Hamilton, Mass, native quickly outgrew her gym teaches, who gave Johnson books to look at when they couldn't give her anymore pointers.

Despite her natural affinity for the shot and the discuss, though, Johnson never took the field events seriously." "It was always so easy that I never put much into it," she remembers. "I just wasn't that intense--I would go to the meets because I could win. I was lucky meets because I could win. I was lucky enough to have the height, strength, quickness and coordination to beat everyone else." she says simply.

In fact, Johnson was so low-key about pursuing the field events that she did not even-go out for the track team when she first arrived at Harvard. She took a taste of Radcliffe crew ("They put me at stroke which really didn't surprise me"), then quit to pursue her love of basketball. It was only after leaving the hoop team because of its "pressure and lack of cameraderie" that Johnson went out for the tack team.

Again, not surprisingly, Johnson immediately rose to the top of the roster, out throwing everyone by at least 10 feet. Everything seemed to be working out too well--Johnson says she became "disillusioned" with Harvard life.

"I had never had to train to do well, so in a sense I was just continuing high school. I was worried that if I did start having problems. I wouldn't know what to do," she explains. "It was just too easy."

Johnson continued to pursue interests outside sports, especially in music, which she describes as a "lifelong bobby." An aficionado of the flute who picked up the trombone "when my flute got stolen, because it made more noise," Johnson even managed to make a name for herself on the Harvard Band.

"I was the first female ever to win the Harvard Band Drinking Contest," Johnson laughs proudly. "There is this annual party after the Brown game where all the freshmen drink 'Brown Punch' which is made of bourbon and apple cider. I must've had about 20 cuts of that stuff--I beat out some 200-pound hick from Missouri, too," she adds.

Johnson's star began to wane in the spring of her sophomore year when injuries in both legs, as well as a sprained ankle, put her on the sidelines. Head Coach Pappy Hunt encouraged her to compete anyway, "but all the meets were away and it was all travelling, so I didn't feel it was worth it. I was just getting no satisfaction out of it." says Johnson, who decided to take a temporary leave of absence from the team.

When the fall of her junior year rolled around, however, Johnson was still not ready to return to competition. "I started to take the year off," she remembers, "but I told Pappy that if he needed any help in close meets I would throw. He called me down for Spring filed and a few other meets, and although I was taped to high heaven because of pulled ligaments in my knees, I won."

Partly out of ennui and party because she missed throwing, Johnson returned to competition, and at the end of her junior year she was named co-captain for the 1981-82 season with runner Mary Herlihy. With this election came a new commitment to training, throwing and personal excellence that Johnson half never made to Harvard athletics before.

"Kim had always been half-hearted before," Hunt says. "being elected captain made her make a commitment. She's such is free spirit that she has never really tapped her tremendous innate talent--the could have easily gone over 50 feet before in the shot if she had wanted to. This problem is that she's just interested in too many things, but that is what Harvard is about." be concludes.

Johnson's election made a tremendous difference in her attitude. She says, "Now I feel like I have much more input in the team, and that I'm more crucial. It's very satisfying to me to feel like I call help and encourage people."

As for being a latent 50-ft shot putter, though, Johnson is more reluctant to agree. "I might be, but I don't know," she says. "Before this year I'd never worked hard or put myself on the line, so I don't know what I could have accomplished."

Teammate and fellow shot putter Marie Acacia agrees with Hunt that Johnson could throw much further than she does, and she as serts: "When Km makes up her mind to do it, she's there. Kim's only problem is in her mind--I think she's scared of being better than she is now."

Tossing talents aside, Johnson also wins accolades from her teammates for her ebullient and cheerful personality. "Kim really cares about us," Acacia says. "If someone gets injured, she is genuinely concerned, and when I throw well, I can tell that she's really happy for me."

Kathy Durante, a freshman whose farthest throw beats Johnson's best, chimes in: "Everyone looks up to Kim. She's very dedicated to what she does, so when she sets her mind to do something she doesn't do it half-hearted. She also has a great sense of humor--you never see her moping around the track if she has had a bad day. "I hope I can be like that this spring when the days get rough."

Although Johnson hopes to do well in tomorrow's Eastern competition, she emphasizes that if she gets beaten, she will not be devastated. "Shot putting is not my raison d'etre," she explains. "Sometimes I see these shot putters who are shot putters through and through, but in the long run I know I have more than they do, I mean, how good are they in basketball? Can they play the flute? That's one of the greatest things about being a Harvard athlete--it means that you have more going for you than just your sport."

Looking beyond Harvard, Johnson hopes to attend graduate school for two years at either Boston University. Duke or Columbia where she will study to be a physical therapist. "I don't want to be a doctor," she says. "It's just too intense. As therapist you can work closely with a fewer amount of patients, and it's also not the kind of job you get tired of going to every day."

Although Johnson feels "really tired of this place," she says that she has gotten a great deal out of Harvard--not just track records.

"Unlike a lot of people, I've gotten a lot of confidence out of Harvard," she says. "I've also changed and matured a lot--I can't believe some of the wacky things I did freshman year, My dad thought that I was going to get knocked on my ass here. But I haven't.

* * *

Many Herlihy unwittingly summed up the attitude her peers towards Johnson last weekend at the Ivy Championships.

"Hey-nice race, Captain!" Johnson called from stands after Herlihay's second place finish in the 1500 meter run.

Looking up with broad grin, Herlihy responded, "Just trying to keep up with you, Captain!"