Basketball Holds a Special Place for H.D. Woodson's Jeniece Johnson, Who Has Worked to Rise Above a Lifetime of Challenges
 

By Story by Jeff Nelson
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, March 8, 2009; D01

Jeniece Johnson grabs the torn Nike shopping bag that has been stashed on a shelf in her bedroom closet and proudly removes a weathered, black, three-ring binder. She calls this her "To Remember Book." Inside, there are carefully clipped newspaper articles about her H.D. Woodson basketball team as well as recruiting mail, including one letter from last year with a picture of late North Carolina State coach Kay Yow. The Wolfpack legend is pointing straight ahead, with the words, "I want you," above her. Below, it says, "Jeniece."

In another photo, Jeniece stands behind her teammates, posing after yet another Warriors victory. Her soft, contagious smile is absent -- she looks serious, tough -- but that's just bravado. These are some of the happiest times in her life.

The "To Remember Book" is almost all about basketball, all about the past three years and the sport she calls her "big ticket." Everything that came before in her life, all the traumatic things she has overcome -- "I've seen a lot of things I shouldn't have seen when I was little," she says -- is missing. Her mother's 10-year battle with diabetes. The strangers smoking crack in the hallway of her house. Her grandfather trying to poison her great-grandmother. Her own fights, suspensions and expulsion. The school ruling that almost kept her from playing this season -- all that has no place in a scrapbook.

The images and stories of her success on the court, and the college letters praising her skills, represent hope, something she long lived without.

When the 6-foot-6 senior enters Verizon Center tomorrow night for the City Title game between No. 8 H.D. Woodson and No. 5 Good Counsel, she can look back and admit she once was, in her words, "a human wreck."

But her "To Remember Book" tells a new story.

"I'm supposed to be dead right now," she says, "but basketball just opened up everything for me."

Jeniece, 18, lives with her older brother in a Section 8 apartment in an Anacostia complex called Cedar Heights. The only furniture, outside of a few television stands, is a tall, round table with a wood laminate top, which has two bar stool-height chairs. This is where she sits on the rare occasion when there is company.

Jeniece is a self-admitted homebody, most comfortable in her bedroom watching Nick at Nite with Little Bits, Princess and Nemo, her three cats. The quiet solitude is so much different than her childhood home.

"I had a crazy family," she says, before offering a quick story about her grandfather. "He was on drugs. He tried to poison my [great]-grandmother; put rat pellets in her salad."

When Jeniece's mother found out, "she tried to kill him in the house."

Jeniece, who thinks she was 6 at the time, still remembers watching her mother attack her grandfather.

For the first 10 years of her life, Jeniece grew up in a two-story, red-brick duplex owned by her great-grandmother, Grace Johnson, in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington. Jeniece also lived with her older brother by three years, Gerald; her younger half-sister by two years, Leandra; and their mother, Rose, who in those days was more like another sibling than a parent.

"We thought someone was breaking in the house [late one] night," Gerald says, "but it was my mother coming in through the window. We hit her with a bat and she fell through the window headfirst."

Their mother was unhurt, and years later Jeniece and Gerald laugh at the memory.

Asked about their father, the siblings turn serious. They know who he is, they say, but he's never had a role in their upbringing.

"I think we're just child support to him," Jeniece says.

Jeniece and Rose had a complicated, combustible relationship. Their early fights stemmed from mostly trivial matters -- whether Jeniece could go outside, whether she did her homework, what she was eating -- but they were frequent.

"I had her attitude," Jeniece says. "I'm very determined like my mother, and very hardheaded. My [great]-grandmother told her, 'When you have children, they're going to be twice as worse as you.' And my [great]-grandmother [looked at me and] said to her, 'Yeah, that's twice as worse as you.' "

Grace, who set the rules of the house, developed a close relationship with the children. Jeniece, in particular, remembers getting coloring pads and notebooks from Grace, and encouragement to draw pictures and write poems. Jeniece returned her affection by doing little things to help Grace, like trying to make oatmeal for her. "The bottom would be burnt and I'd just scrape it out and put it in there, put a little Sweet'N-Low in. And she'd still eat it."

One Sunday morning, when Jeniece was 9, Grace finished a bowl of oatmeal and went upstairs for a nap. Jeniece stayed downstairs, watching television. Grace, who had gone blind from diabetes and suffered from other health complications, told Jeniece that morning: "Tell your mom to find a new place to live. I'm not going to be around forever." But Jeniece just laughed. "Grandma, you're not going anywhere," she remembers saying. Hours later, Grace died in her sleep.

"It caused me a lot of problems," Jeniece says, "dealing with that."

By the time Grace died, Rose was frequently ill. She had diabetes diagnosed a year before and had already had her toes amputated. She worked for D.C. Public Schools as a security guard when she was younger, but she no longer had a steady job. With almost no money, the family had to move.

Rose had few options, so she took them to the apartment of a friend, where they lived in the front room with another couple. Various tenants occupied other rooms.

"There were people smoking crack in the hallways," Jeniece says. "They used to steal our stuff, like our food. And I used to tell my mother, 'I'm getting tired of it.' "

One summer night, after two more moves, tensions between mother and daughter boiled over. A physical altercation between Jeniece, Leandra and Rose led to Rose calling the police. Jeniece was taken into custody and spent one night in a detention center, then another in a group home. That Monday, she had a hearing in juvenile court.

Jeniece says the punishment was not severe -- six months probation -- but it also included weekly drug tests. Marijuana had been found in her system.

She was 12 at the time and says she had just started to smoke with friends. She says she did not test positive again during the following six months but continued to smoke socially afterward.

Back home, Rose's various health problems continued, though she tried to hide them from her children. One night, Jeniece came home to find her mother in bed, back from a stay in the hospital. Jeniece was stunned to look down and discover that Rose's legs had been amputated below the knees.

"I didn't know anything about her legs until I looked," Jeniece says. "But I didn't say anything because I didn't want to hurt my mom's feelings or make her feel down. So I just looked at her and she just smiled. And I just walked out because I didn't want to say anything."

Jeniece's turbulent life at home was mirrored in the classroom from an early age, according to the school records she agreed to share with The Post.

Jeniece repeated first grade at Noyes Elementary and was placed in special-needs classes after having a learning disability diagnosed. As part of her evaluation, a social worker said Jeniece was "hyperactive" and "easily distracted, inattentive, and frustrated." The social worker also said "an evaluation for ADHD should be explored further."

There is no record of an evaluation taking place.

During fifth grade, a review of her independent education program indicated that Jeniece had difficulty in both math and English. But toward the end of that year, a decision was made by Noyes officials to have her skip sixth grade and move her directly to seventh grade at Backus Middle in the fall.

The document reflecting the school's decision states: "Student needs highly structured learning environment and is showing progress in current setting. Will be promoted to Middle School [in] September 2002."

Noyes Principal Wayne Ryan, who held the same position when the decision was made in the spring of 2002, said he does not recall Johnson, but after consulting with some of his teachers, he wrote in an e-mail: "It seems that she came to us in the 5th grade and, after a difficult period of adjustment and as a special needs student, it was determined that she should be placed in her age appropriate grade in the middle school setting."

Jeniece learned of the decision from her mother.

"I wanted to come back to Noyes with my friends," she says. "I was crying, I remember. I just kept crying, but I didn't say nothing to nobody."

Facing a higher level of subject matter, Jeniece struggled in seventh grade, earning a D average. Near the end of the academic year, she took tests that showed she was working at a third- or fourth-grade level, depending on the subject. But when the semester ended, she was promoted to eighth grade. A year later, in the fall of 2004, she headed to Woodson.

By then, Rose's kidneys were failing, and Leandra, at the age of 12, had become pregnant.

With Gerald and Jeniece in school, there was no one to take care of Rose or Leandra or the Section 8 house into which they had recently moved.

"I'd come home and [my mother] would be sick and throwing up" Gerald says, "and there'd be cups all around her bed" filled with vomit.

H.D. Woodson basketball coach Frank Oliver, who knew about the 6-foot-something freshman at his school, remembers visiting the family.

"I come to her house and her sister is 12 years old and pregnant; her mother is on the floor," he says. "I can't describe the odor that was in the house. It smelled like rotting flesh. It definitely wasn't sanitary.

"Kids are still kids. If Jeniece was having a problem, her mom couldn't check on her."

By December, Jeniece's problems were mounting. "Smoking and fighting and not listening and not going to class" is how she describes her first months at H.D. Woodson. She was taking out her home frustrations at school, and she was finally expelled after throwing an orange that hit a teacher.

"My mom said I couldn't sit around the house," Jeniece says, "so I got me a job for six months."

She worked for a neighborhood handyman who would pick her up at 5 a.m. and drop her off at 8 p.m. each day. She says he paid her more than $100 per day in cash, which went straight to her family.

Jeniece stopped working and joined Oliver's summer league travel team for her first experience in organized basketball. But after reenrolling at H.D. Woodson in the fall, her problems resumed.

As her fights with other students -- both boys and girls -- escalated in frequency and severity, Jeniece reached a point during the spring of 2006 "where I knew if I didn't get my life straight, I was going to be locked up or dead."

Her new path was obvious.

Tia Bell, then a junior center for the Warriors, had been slowly and steadily attempting to persuade Jeniece to join the basketball team. "She was the only girl [in school] taller than me," said Bell, now a 6-foot-3 sophomore at N.C. State. "I really didn't know too much about her, but I wanted to get her on the floor with me.

"I probably bugged her to death."

Jeniece finally committed to joining the team after a conversation with her mother.

"She looked at my report card one day," Jeniece says, "and she was like, 'You need to get yourself together.' And she told me she was getting real sick, like she thought she was going to go any day. And that really [shook] me up. The next couple of weeks, I was like, 'I need to get myself together.' "

When Jeniece told Oliver she wanted to be eligible for the following basketball season, he was ecstatic.

"I knew that was it," he says. "Once she made up her mind to commit to it, nothing was going to stop her."

After the academic year, Oliver drove Jeniece to summer school every day and she started taking classes seriously. She says she also quit smoking and drinking, and separated herself from the people who did. She said she told her friends, "Don't get mad at me if I stop talking to y'all. I got to do what I got to do."

Jeniece's grade-point average during her repeat freshman year had been 0.26, in part because she had been placed in sophomore-level classes. In the 2006-07 academic year, with classes ranging from freshman to junior level, she earned a 2.33. When the season started, she made the team.

From there, her improvement was "dramatic," Oliver says.

"She went from not being able to make a layup to finishing with either hand. Jump hooks in the post. Running the floor. . . . She had good hands. And any coach will you tell you any post player with good hands can go a long way."

As Jeniece came off the bench to help H.D. Woodson win its second straight D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championship, her transformation extended beyond basketball.

"Before Jeniece had basketball, she was just . . . out there," said her godmother, Angie Green, with whom Jeniece lived during her sophomore year. "I thought she was going to be lost. And once she got in the mode of basketball, basketball, everything changed. . . . It's basketball practice, homework, sleep and do it all over again."

Basketball also began to alter Jeniece's relationship with her mother. There were fewer sources for serious conflict and more time to spend having coffee and poundcake at the very table now standing in Jeniece and Gerald's apartment.

"Even though me and my mom never had a good relationship -- we'd argue and fuss and fight -- when we come back and be ready to talk to each other, we'd just talk and laugh and really just enjoy each other while we were there," Jeniece says.

As a junior last season, Jeniece became a starter and continued to develop her skills, which, when combined with her size, attracted considerable attention from colleges.

Division I schools from four time zones sent her letters, which arrived in such great numbers that she finally asked Oliver to just keep them at school. Jeniece, whose GPA rose to a 2.56 for the year, cemented her status as a top recruit in the 2008 City Title game. She was named most valuable player after recording 14 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocks in a 61-55 win over Bishop McNamara.

Unbeknownst to her at the time, it was the only game Jeniece's mother ever watched her play. Gerald and Rose decided to go at the last minute, but when they arrived late and didn't have tickets, they remained on Seventh Street, following along on the big screen outside Verizon Center.

Gerald remembers Rose being upset that she couldn't go in. "But," he says, "she said she'd go next year."

Six months after the game, Jeniece's mother had a heart attack and lapsed into a coma. Last Oct. 4, she was taken off life support at the age of 41.

Jeniece did not play basketball for weeks afterward. "I was still in shock mode," she says. "My body, I was real sick, having anxiety attacks, throwing up. I didn't want to be bothered with nobody. I'd come straight home, watch TV."

As her senior season approached, Johnson gradually returned to normal activities, but she continues to deal with the pain from her mother's death.

"We haven't really sat down," Green said, "and had what we call a 'Waiting to Exhale' moment, where we get her mint-chocolate ice cream and me cinnamon rolls and we just sit and talk. It's coming. I know she's hurting."

Jeniece and Gerald, who works as a newspaper distributor, could not pay for a funeral. But thanks to a voucher obtained through the city's Department of Human Services, Rose was cremated two weeks after her death. Her ashes now reside in a plain black rectangular box, which they keep in the entryway closet.

Jeniece, who turned 18 in the weeks after her mother's death, now buys the groceries, helps Gerald with bills, plans her own meals and spends time trying to figure out if they can get furniture through a store that has a partnership with the city. In the meantime, they sleep on air mattresses.

"I just feel like I'm already grown," she says, "just taking care of myself and just depending on myself. Going to the doctor by myself, I'm real scared. But it's just life. If I don't get it done, no one else will."

Two days before the Warriors' first game of this season, Oliver received a letter from DCPS that said Jeniece was ineligible. Because Jeniece started high school in the fall of 2004, DCPS officials determined her eight semesters of eligibility expired in the spring of 2008.

Oliver appealed the ruling, but lost. He spent the next month searching for help and finally found it at a free legal clinic sponsored by the D.C. Bar. A Justice Department official doing the intake heard her story and sent her to Delbert Terrill, a former administrative law judge and lawyer, who then persuaded his international law firm, Morrison & Foerster, to represent her pro bono.

After reviewing her school history, Terrill and his colleagues were prepared to file a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against DCPS to get Jeniece back on the Warriors. They planned to argue that school officials had set Jeniece up for failure as a high school freshman; that they were misinterpreting their own rules about eligibility; and that they were violating the D.C. Human Rights Act, which protects students with learning disabilities.

On the eve of their legal action, Jeniece's lawyers communicated with DCPS general counsel Jim Sandman, who agreed to review her case. The following day, DCPS reinstated her eligibility.

DCPS officials have declined comment on the case.

After missing the Warriors' first 16 games, Jeniece returned to the court Jan. 16 wearing sneakers covered with the words, "RIP Mom," in several places. This season, she says, is dedicated to Rose.

Even without her mom, though, Jeniece has found a network of support. Parents and relatives of her teammates check up on her -- one freshman's aunt even baked a carrot cake for Jeniece while she was ineligible -- and she can go several places for guidance.

There is Demetria Harris, an outreach and services specialist for Ward 7, who has been helping her figure out what aid the city can provide. And Geraldine Hart, a 71-year-old former neighbor and friend, who dispenses advice and offers a place to stay when Jeniece wants company.

A group from Morrison & Foerster also plans to keep helping Jeniece in legal matters and will be in the stands tomorrow, watching her play for the first time. And of course, there are her teammates and coaches -- especially her coaches.

"I have father figures now," she says.

Oliver, in particular, has been "awesome," and he is working with Jeniece's lawyers and the NCAA Clearinghouse to make sure she will be eligible to play Division I basketball next season.

Jeniece orally committed last year to N.C. State, but she is unsure of her destination after Yow's death from cancer. Assuming she's eligible -- she takes the SAT this month -- Jeniece should be in high demand.

"This is a down year for post players," said Mike Flynn, a girls' basketball recruiting expert and the founder of the Blue Star Report. "There is probably a multitude of schools who will jump in new or re-recruit her if N.C. State doesn't get her."

Wherever she goes, Jeniece plans to bring her "To Remember Book," along with a few other prized possessions, all of which sit on the two shelves of her bedroom closet.

There are six pairs of basketball shoes from her time on the Warriors; seven trophies won in the past three years; and a plaque from being named most valuable player of the Nike Rose Classic in New York last season.

When asked which of these means the most to her, she pulls down the City Title MVP award, or at least part of it. Sometime in the past year, the octagon-shaped piece of glass broke off its base.

"I gotta get that fixed," she says.

A few minutes later, Jeniece takes a look around the sparsely furnished apartment and considers her past, how far she's come and where she might yet go.

"I had to go through all of that," she says, "to get to this."

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