Montgomery- Since coming on board the coaching staff at James Clemens High, Johnny Johnson has always possessed the style and teaching of putting pressure on his opponents. He has handled his program with the idea of practicing hard and putting pressure on every aspect of the sport of baseball.

The philosophy he teaches he recently took to Montgomery as a guest speaker at the 2021 Alabama High School Athletic Association Summer Conference held in conjunction with the AHSAA All-Star Week held July 20-23.

His program was titled “High Pressure Baseball.”

“I stress the idea of the bunt game, base running and the team mindset of keeping the pressure on your opponent at all times,” said Johnson. “The pressure makes young minds make quick decisions, which many times causes mistakes and we take advantage of those mistakes for the good of our team.”

The James Clemens Jets were 27-14 in 2021 posting a school record of most wins in a season with 15 seniors on the roster. With the fearlessness Johnson instills to his program during practice and early part of the season, his squad posted 204 stolen bases, third most in AHSAA history. The Jets were 81-percent effective on stolen base tries. Of the 10 main players on the team, all but one had double-digit stolen bases. The record base stealing effort was led by John Mark Ingalls (36), Kobe Johnson (30) and Carson Creehan (21).

Johnson was one of the selected speakers at the conference two years ago and this year he spoke on mainly the same subject, but he updated his presentation with more than four hours of prep time. After his 50-minute class time, Johnson was approached by several of those coaches in attendance at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center. “Yes, I had several good conversations afterwards receiving very good feedback,” added Johnson, who is also the Chairman of the Board for the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association.

His PowerPoint presentation included highlighting some key points:

• Consistent Energy
• Attention To Detail (Body Position, Pitch Selection)
• Not Just Speed and Stealing Bases
• Fearlessness (Created in practice and early season)

“The biggest fact about being aggressive is aggressiveness doesn’t go into a slump like hitting does and I can adapt my team each year, said Johnson, 45, who was head coach at Fort Payne for 14 years prior to moving to James Clemens. “If you’re not aggressive many coaches just wait on the big hit. Many times those sluggers don’t come along. I feel being aggressive is the way to go in high school baseball.”