Ben, Emily Johnson packaged as new Westview coaches
By Randy Cavin
Press Sports Editor
It is becoming to look like a family affair at Westview High School with the announcement of two new head coaches.
Emily Belote Johnson was announced as the new girls’ soccer head coach at Thursday’s Pep and Pack and the Bus event. Westview Booster Club member John Hamrick introduced Johnson to the large crowd of Charger supporters with her new team standing behind her.
Westview principal Jeromy Davidson announced Friday that Ben Johnson, the husband of the new girls’ soccer coach, will be the new head coach of the softball team and an assistant football coach.
The two new coaches should be familiar names. Ben Johnson was an All-Ohio Valley Conference Defensive Player and All-American linebacker at UT Martin, where he played linebacker from 2009-13. Emily Johnson is a 2009 Westview graduate and former Lady Chargers’ soccer standout.
Davidson is glad to have the married couple coaching at Westview.
“Emily was a really good soccer player and she played softball while she was here,” Davidson said. “Her whole family was very athletic coming through here. I think Emily has a lot of energy and she knows the history of our program. She was a part of the building of that history. We are very fortunate to get somebody of her caliber.
“Ben was an assistant football coach last year at the middle school, and he taught at Trinity Christian Academy and coached football there for a few years. Of course, he was a very good football player at UT Martin, and he spent some time with the Kansas City Chiefs organization right after college.”
It was a more of a package deal to get both Johnsons on board with coaching at Westview. Ben Johnson will be teaching economics at the school, while Emily Johnson will coach as a non-faculty member.
“It has been difficult to find a soccer coach in our area,” Davidson said. “There are not a lot of people who go to college to become a teacher and coach soccer. She’s a non-faculty coach like Seth Coleman was. Another thing is we have lost four teaching positions over the three or four years. So, we are continuing to try to find coaches with fewer and fewer teaching positions. Unfortunately, everybody who wants to coach goes to college to get a degree in physical education. That just makes it difficult to hire them.”
Davidson says it would make finding coaches easier, not only at Westview but also at the other county schools, if college students would think about getting teaching degrees in areas other than physical education.
“I encourage people that want to coach to get a degree in foreign language, or math, or English, or science,” he said. “That will make you more marketable.”
Davidson admits he did not know much about Ben Johnson, other than his football background before he hired him. Word got around to Davidson about Johnson’s overall character, including from UTM head football coach Jason Simpson.
“Everybody I have spoken with about Ben has all been very, very complimentary about the kind of person he is,” Davidson said. “They all said he has a high moral fiber and character. We want as many people that are described that way as possible in front of our kids. Coach Simpson spoke very highly of him, not only as an athlete but as a person. It was really good to hear from community members about his character.”
Ben Johnson is originally from Fairview. The two new additions to the Westview family reside in Martin and have a one-year-old daughter, Madilynn. Emily Johnson is an occupational therapist at Rehab America in Jackson.
