BREAKING NEWS:PU grad Johnson named new Tiger basketball coach

Georgetown assistant returns to alma mater

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   Sydney Johnson, who as a player was named Ivy League Player of the Year and as a coach helped lead a team to the NCAA Final Four, has been named the new head men’s basketball at Princeton University.
   Johnson, 32, will be formally introduced as head coach at a press conference on Monday in the Class of 1956 Lounge at Princeton Stadium. A free live video stream of the press conference will be available at GoPrincetonTigers.com.
   "As a player at Princeton, Sydney Johnson was the embodiment of heart, passion, class and dignity," says Gary Walters ’67, Princeton’s Director of Athletics. "We are delighted that he will bring those same qualities back to Princeton as our head men’s basketball coach."
   "I had a lot of excitement and nervous energy when I accepted the position," Johnson said, "but that has quickly turned into a feeling of relaxation of knowing that this is the right place to be. It’s great to be here, and the challenge now will be to move forward."
   Johnson, the only three-time captain in Princeton history, was the 1997 Ivy League Player of the Year and a 1996 and 1997 first-team All-Ivy League selection. He has most recently been an assistant coach at Georgetown, where he helped lead the Hoyas to the 2007 Final Four.
   Johnson played professional basketball for seven seasons in both Italy and Spain before joining John Thompson III’s coaching staff at Georgetown in 2004. In his three seasons as an assistant coach at Georgetown, the Hoyas had a 72-30 overall record and advanced to postseason play each season.
   "Sydney is a star as a person and as a basketball coach," said Thompson, who also was an assistant coach at Princeton during Johnson’s junior and senior seasons.
   "I’m not sure I have enough words to describe how much I learned in three years at Georgetown from Coach Thompson," said Johnson. "He’s not only a mentor and a role model both on and off the court but a great example of the kind of person I hope to emulate and the kind of person that makes Princeton proud."
   At Princeton, Johnson was a four-year starter who is considered one of the finest all-around players in team history. He ranks in the top five at Princeton all-time in steals, assists and three-point shots and is also one of 26 1,000-point scorers in team history.
   Johnson was the 1997 Ivy League Player of the Year after leading the Tigers to an undefeated Ivy League season and a 24-4 overall record. Johnson, who averaged 9.3 points and 4.1 rebounds per game as a senior, is the only player to ever win the award while averaging fewer than 10 points per game.
   The program’s all-time leader in steals with 169, Johnson was a two-time first-team All-Ivy League selection. He finished his Princeton career with 1,044 points, now 24th on the team’s all-time list, though he was perhaps better known for his defensive ability than for his offensive prowess.
   "Sydney was the best defensive player I ever coached at Princeton," said Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody, who was an assistant coach at Princeton for 14 seasons and then Johnson’s head coach in 1996-97. "He was a tremendous player and a great leader, and he worked as hard every day as any player I’ve been around."
   "I always thought from the very beginning when I recruited him that he had excellent leadership qualities," says Naismith Hall of Fame coach Pete Carril, Johnson’s head coach at Princeton for three seasons and a member of the advisory committee that helped select Johnson as head coach. "As a coach, you apply all of those qualities and your experiences. He will do a fine job for Princeton."
   Johnson, who also ranks fifth all-time at Princeton in both three-point shots (162) and assists (280), was also a two-time Academic All-Ivy selection and the winner of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship in 1997.
   A native of Towson, Md., outside Baltimore, Johnson attended Towson Catholic High School before spending a postgraduate year at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia in 1992-93. At Towson Catholic, he was the MVP of the Baltimore Catholic League tournament in 1992.
   Johnson’s older brother Stephen also played Division I basketball for the University of California at Berkeley.
   He and his wife, Jennifer, have two children, a two-year old son Jalen and an infant daughter Julia, who was born in February.
   Johnson will begin his duties at Princeton immediately. He replaces Joe Scott ’87, who resigned March 20 to become the head coach at the University of Denver.