THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Zach Johnson leaving Lake City High as arguably the best all-around athlete in school history

When Zach Johnson was in middle school, he was still trying to decide whether to attend Coeur d’Alene High or Lake City High.

But whatever his choice of high school would ultimately be, he told his father, Eric, about one goal he had in mind.

“I told him, no doubt, I want to be the best athlete ever to have come through the school,” Zach, now a senior, recalled last week.

“Not just the best football player, not just the best basketball player, the best track athlete,” he said. “When they say who was the best athlete ever? I want that to be me.”

Eric Johnson, a Cheney High grad, went on to play center for the Idaho Vandals in the early and mid-1990s.

“I told him, it would take a lot of work to follow through with that,” Eric said. “And I honestly think I told him, ‘You’re young enough that you don’t understand yet how much work that will take, but you will. You will recognize when you come into high school, playing sports with older, bigger, stronger athletes, you quickly realize how competitive you need to be, and how hard you need to work.’

“And I think that helped him prepare for his freshman year, and coming into high school sports in general.”

ZACH JOHNSON ultimately decided to attend Lake City High, and the Timberwolves are certainly glad he did.

He shined in football, basketball and track and field.

He was a three-year starter in football, and even played as a freshman in Lake City’s last state playoff football game, in 2019 vs. Mountain View.

He was a four-year starter in basketball, and helped his team advance to state all four years. Twice Lake City played for the state title, including this year on a once-in-a-lifetime team which saw the T-Wolves roll to a 26-0 record, win games by an average of 29.4 points, and bring home the program’s first state crown.

He was a three-year letterman in track — he would have lettered all four years, but COVID-19 wiped out spring sports in 2020, his freshman season — where he was one of the team’s top sprinters and went to state the last two years (an injury prevented him from qualifying for state as a sophomore).

That’s 10 varsity letters in four years, and it would have been 11 without COVID.

The 6-foot-3, 218-pound Johnson, who graduates from Lake City on Saturday, is now preparing for the next phase of his life — playing football at Idaho, which recruited him as a linebacker.

Zach Johnson — best athlete in the 29-year history of Lake City High?

“I think he did that,” said Kelly Reed, who coached Johnson in all three sports, and who has coached at Lake City the past 27 years.

“We've had a ton of fantastic two-sport athletes … and even when a lot of kids did (three sports), we never had anybody that was all-state caliber in three," Reed said. "He was first-team all-state in football, he sets a school record with 22 receiving touchdowns, has a school record 23 tackles in a game, one of the best football players in Idaho, and some might say, overall, the best player in the state of Idaho.

“In basketball, on a lot of high school teams, Zach would have been the go-to guy, and, when asked, could dominate for us if needed," Reed said. "People forget about this — Zach scored 26 points in a half in the jamboree, his freshman year against Post Falls. His very first high school basketball experience with a uniform on, other than practice, he scored 26 against the team that just played in the state final. And that Post Falls team had everybody back.

“In track and field, he’s third all-time in the 100 at Lake City, fourth in the 200, he’s on the second- and third-fastest 4x1, the second-fastest 4x2 team in school history," Reed said. "Qualified for state in five different events, and qualified for the finals in the 100 and 200 in his career, and was fifth in the 100 this year. And he weighs 220 pounds now.

“If you’re talking run-jump-catch, I don’t think you’re going to find anybody that runs as fast, jumps as high and catches as well.”

In addition to being all-state on defense as a senior, Zach Johnson was a three-year all-5A Inland Empire League selection.

And he was all-league his last three seasons in basketball.

How important was it to play three sports?

“Obviously we were having good basketball teams,” Johnson said. “My mindset was, football was going to be my sport. Basketball will help with the explosive aspect of football, because you’re jumping, and sliding everywhere … and then track, that’s when you get to work on speed. So I kind of used basketball and track to help with my football performance. But I was also enjoying basketball and track too.”

“Zach, certainly, he gets his athleticism from his mom (Leah),” Eric said. “He might get his speed from me; he gets all the rest of his athleticism from his mom.”

Jim Winger was Johnson’s basketball coach all four years, and was Lake City’s AD until resigning from that post after the 2021-22 school year. If Johnson wanted to get into the school to lift, or into the gym to shoot baskets, often it was Winger who was there to let him in.

“He’s a very polite kid,” Winger said. “He’s the hardest worker in the school; certainly the best athlete in the school. He’s a tremendous student; he’s a top competitor, there’s not a flaw to that kid.

“I don’t care if it's practice, summer ball, open gym or weight room, or winter game, you watch him — he is possessed, as a competitor. And he just turns into a machine. I can’t say enough about Zach. He plays the game right, plays his butt off, every practice, every game. I’ll open up the weight room in the morning during a school day, and he’ll lift in the morning, and in (weights) class. All summer, we let him in the weight room. He will do great things in college; he will do great things in life. His work ethic is second to none.”

AH, THAT work ethic.

True, as Reed says, part of Zach Johnson’s success comes from pretty good DNA — both parents were college athletes as Zach’s mom, the former Leah Smith, played at Deary High and then played volleyball and tennis at Idaho.

But much of it also comes from a work ethic instilled in him by his parents.

Some of that is being part of a competitive family — be it playing mini-golf with his parents, brother Kyle, a sophomore baseball and football player at Lake City, and sister Courtney, an eighth grader who competes in basketball, volleyball and track and field, as part of a family vacation on the Oregon Coast.

Or, just winning the argument at the dinner table — who’s better at what sport.

“Zach has been competitive since he was at a really young age; he pushes himself and he holds himself to a pretty high standard,” Eric Johnson said. “And I don’t know really where it came from. He was like that from when he was 3, 4, 5 years old. It’s fun to see him grow up and have that same feeling, and certainly it’s a different interaction of competition with his siblings … but he’s always had it.”

“I’ll give credit to my mom and dad, because they played a college sport, so they understood,” Zach said. “Ever since I can remember, they said, you’ve got to work. That’s how you achieve what you want — whether it’s a job, whether it’s sports, school, whatever you do, you have to work hard. And to get better and better as you get older and older, you have to work harder and harder. That’s just how it is.”

When the pandemic shut down spring sports in 2020 and kids attended school virtually from home, Zach found even more time to work.

Some weights were set up in the basement of the family home.

“Between 3-4 hours a day, I was down there,” Johnson said. “Wake up in the morning, do a little bit … then when it got cooler at night I’d go down and open up the windows and go at it for another hour or two.”

He did this for 2-3 months, every day.

“Had a squat rack set up. And I looked up everything under the sun to do with a barbell and a couple plates,” he said. “It was also kind of a research effort on my part, to see what I could do.”

It also helped that Lake City, in its first trip to state since 2014, was coming off a two-and-out performance at state, getting muscled around in the opener by the likes of Austin Bolt of Borah, who is now playing football at Boise State.

“I realized, after we made it to state our freshman year in basketball, if I wanted to be good, not just at basketball but other stuff, you need to be strong at almost everything,” Johnson said. “Who’s stronger, who’s better, who’s faster. And all of that comes from lifting, and getting in the weight room.”

“Most of it, he was on his own,” Reed said of Zach’s work ethic. “He would practice, then he would go to the weight room for two hours, or he’d be in the weight room for two hours, and then come to practice … or, you would drive by Saturday morning at 9 a.m. and there’s his truck. He was just always in the weight room, or on the field running routes, or in the gym shooting hoops, or something.”

As a sophomore, he helped his team reach the state title game, and though the Timberwolves lost, Johnson more than held his own in the post defending Brody Rowbury, Meridian’s massive man-child of a center.

FOOTBALL WAS Johnson’s sport, but most of his success and notoriety came from playing basketball. He played AAU ball with Kolton Mitchell and Deacon Kiesbuy from fifth grade through ninth before opting to spend that time of the year focusing on football, then rejoined those guys on the basketball court in high school.

And with the addition of Blake Buchanan and Nathan Hocking in recent years, Johnson gladly accepted a different role than he played in hoops growing up.

“Whatever you guys need me to do,” Zach told his teammates. “If I don’t need to score? Cool. If I just need to play defense and rebound, that’s cool. Whatever the team needs to win a state championship, and that was the talk at the beginning of the season is, how are we going to get this done.”

In fact, Johnson’s scoring went down this season — from a high of 10.7 points per game as a junior to 7.3 this year. But his assists and blocked shots went up, and he played a key role in Lake City's suffocating defense which allowed 44.5 points per game.

All told, he finished his Lake City hoops career with 913 points in 100 games, 516 rebounds, 173 assists, 59 blocked shots and 121 steals.

“You kind of get used to seeing some of the stuff he does in practice,” said Reed, a longtime assistant in football and boys basketball, and a longtime head track and field coach at Lake City. “I wish people could have watched us practice. Because it was better than the games, the stuff that would happen. Zach had some dunks in practice that were jaw-dropping.”

The games were still pretty good, though.

“Zach was phenomenal this season,” Reed said. “He didn’t turn the ball over, he rebounded like crazy, he took great shots, he could guard anybody on the court — from their biggest guy to their point guard. He’s physically so strong. We gave him bigger assignments all the time, and they couldn’t even get near the post to post up because he’s so strong in the lower body … I honestly believe Zach’s one of the best athletes in the whole state at any level. To have one of the best athletes in the state on your team, who also happens to be not only a good athlete but cerebral and competitive, oh my gosh, competitive. Yeah, he contributed quite a bit.”

AFTER BASKETBALL season, which started right after football season, Johnson would take a bit of a break — “enough to decompress a little bit” — before joining the track team right after spring break.

Reed was good with it, understanding the importance of rest.

Of course ...

“There’s taking time off, and then there’s taking time off like Zach did,” Reed said. “He just didn’t run; he was lifting like crazy. He just wasn’t running, to give his legs a little break from the pounding.”

As a sophomore, Johnson was competing in the long jump when he “landed weird.”

But it didn’t seem too bad at the time, so he ran for another 3-4 weeks, and was about to run in the regional meet in the 4x200 relay when he got a call from his doctor.

“He said he’d checked it out and was like, ‘Actually you tore your patella tendon (in the left knee) and pretty much broke your tibia, so you can’t run,’” Johnson said.

Track season over.

Of course, he still turned that injury into a chance to get better.

“The first thought was, ‘What can I do?’” Zach said. “Maybe I can’t run, or do anything with my legs, but what I can do with my arms, work out just my upper body. What about swimming, because I don’t bend my legs swimming. That gets me in better shape.”

As a junior, Johnson placed at state in three events — seventh in the 200, and third in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.

As a senior, he was fifth in the 100, and fourth on the 4x100 relay team.

JOHNSON ORIGINALLY wanted to play tight end in college.

Until …

“This past summer, I went to a bunch of camps as a tight end, and pretty much got told, ‘Hey, you’re too small. Too short, you don’t weigh enough coming out of high school. Yeah, you’re good, but you’re not going to be a high-level tight end at that level,’” Zach said.

The bigger schools were looking at tight ends in the 6-4, 6-5, 240-pound range.

“I was like ‘Wow, OK, I have to re-adjust a little bit, re-evaluate what I want to do,’” he said. “Started playing the high school season, and had success at middle and outside linebacker, and U of I coaches stayed in touch and said “Hey, we really like you playing linebacker, and here’s why.”

He had gone to the Idaho camp last summer as a tight end, but eventually did some work with the linebackers.

Idaho offered Zach a scholarship the spring of his junior year. Montana offered in late July last year, after he attended camp in Missoula.

Washington State offered a preferred walk-on role. He said he would have committed to WSU if the Cougars had offered a scholarship.

He said his parents didn’t push to attend the same college they did. Their advice — go where you’re wanted, and go somewhere you can study what you’re interested in.

Zach’s recruitment was almost the opposite of his father, who turned down a scholarship from Eastern Washington because he wouldn’t have been able to pursue his goal of becoming a mechanical engineer. He walked on at Idaho, where he could, and he earned a scholarship after spring practice the following year.

Out of a possible 12 seasons in high school sports (11 for Zach, because of the COVID season), Reed was around Johnson for roughly 1 ½ football seasons, four seasons of football, and 3 ½ seasons of track.

“I coached Zach most of the time he was here,” Reed said. “It was really an honor and pleasure to be around a kid of that athletic caliber, but also such an awesome person. He’s smart, and he’s polite … he’s humble. You don’t find many kids that check most or all of the boxes, and he certainly does that.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.