This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.
Anthony Goods played with Mitch Johnson, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, at Stanford. Goods is now an assistant coach at Arkansas State.
To paint a picture: Mitch Johnson is a cool dude.
I don’t mean he has a cool personality. I mean a laidback kind of cool, like how they used the term in the 1970s. Mitch walks slow. He talks slow. He even drives slow.
When we were in college together at Stanford, we hung out all the time. If the speed limit was 65 miles per hour, I would be doing 80. Mitch would be going 62.
That’s just Mitch. He knows who he is. And that’s why he’s a great leader.
Last year, Mitch was the interim head coach of the San Antonio Spurs. He took over after Gregg Popovich’s health issues. Then he got the full-time job and had Victor Wembanyama and all the expectations that come along with a player that talented.
But Mitch is the perfect coach for that scenario because he is not going to struggle with pressure. He’s going to be level-headed under any circumstance. He’s going to be cool.
I always think back to our second-round game in the NCAA Tournament in 2008 when we beat Marquette at the buzzer. I didn’t have a good game, and our head coach, Trent Johnson, was thrown out of the game in the first half. It was a crazy swing in the game.
But our play never wavered, and that was because Mitch was running the show. He had 16 assists and one turnover (and Brook Lopez had 30 points).
That was a game where Mitch controlled the game and carried us to a win.
It was an everyday thing with Mitch. Mitch was the guy who organized all the open gyms. He won the majority of sprints. He was always in the gym, getting extra shots. And if he wasn’t shooting, he’d be under the basketball, rebounding for someone else.
Playing for Trent Johnson at Stanford wasn’t easy. He was a tough coach. Mitch would pick guys up. He went out of his way to make sure everybody was feeling good and that they had the energy they needed, all the way down to the walk-ons. We had a walk-on named Kenny Brown, and Mitch was always gassing him up in practice. He was everybody’s biggest cheerleader.
He was the heart and soul of our team because he had relationships with everybody.
Don’t get it twisted: He’s got a fiery side. Mitch wasn’t no punk. He was tough. He was talking and his voice would be heard.
I can’t tell you how many balls he’s kicked to the ceiling or how many jerseys he’s ripped in half. But he’s got a lot of emotional intelligence.
He knew how to control his emotions in games. He knew what was at stake. His awareness of the moment was always at another level.
It all came back to his maturity. He knew the DNA of winning. He won in high school in Seattle. His dad, John Johnson, was an NBA champ with the Sonics. And Mitch was the source of that for us at Stanford.
It’s such a joy to see all the success he’s had now in the NBA.
— As told to Jayson Jenks