The Daily Orange'It's been a long road': Wes Johnson has been just about everywhere, but he has finally found a place to call home
By Conor Orr
Posted: 11/4/09, 8:08 PM EST Section: BASKETBALL SEASON PREVIEW
Wesley Johnson stole away from the media day crowd, a group who'd already pegged him as the afternoon's main attraction.
Dressed inconspicuously in his gray hooded sweatshirt, the highly-touted transfer snuck behind the masses and into the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center weight room to bang out some bicep curls before his inevitable date with the bevy of cameras and reporters waiting for him.
This was his big debut - and he wanted everything to be perfect.
"I figured, I would do some curls and stuff just to look good for those pictures," Johnson said. "I'm having fun with it."
Perhaps it was because the moment was so long overdue. Already in his young career, he'd been overlooked, dismissed, scammed and lied to. He got recruited by just one major university out of high school, survived two horrific stints in preparatory school and bounced back from four sour semesters at Iowa State.
Now, he's at a place where he finally feels comfortable. A place where he feels he's finally getting his due.
After a trying journey that included stops at two prep schools and a Big 12 university, Johnson hopes to finally settle down with Syracuse this season. The 6-foot-7 forward will make his Orange debut after transferring to SU from Iowa State in May 2008, in an attempt to put his complicated past behind him.
"It's been a long road," said Craig Carroll, Johnson's brother. "But it was all for his making."
During his sophomore year of high school, Johnson was a 5-foot-9 point guard for his Corsicana (Texas) High School basketball team. He'd been playing basketball for about four years, after his brother had talked him off the gridiron in the seventh grade.
"I got on the phone and I said to him, 'Wesley, with your body frame, you're going to get taller over the years. And you're built and you're made for basketball," Carroll said.
Carroll's premonition about Johnson's size came eerily true just a few years later. It was the second week of June, and Johnson had just finished his second year of high school, when Carroll got a call from his mother.
Dressed inconspicuously in his gray hooded sweatshirt, the highly-touted transfer snuck behind the masses and into the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center weight room to bang out some bicep curls before his inevitable date with the bevy of cameras and reporters waiting for him.
This was his big debut - and he wanted everything to be perfect.
"I figured, I would do some curls and stuff just to look good for those pictures," Johnson said. "I'm having fun with it."
Perhaps it was because the moment was so long overdue. Already in his young career, he'd been overlooked, dismissed, scammed and lied to. He got recruited by just one major university out of high school, survived two horrific stints in preparatory school and bounced back from four sour semesters at Iowa State.
Now, he's at a place where he finally feels comfortable. A place where he feels he's finally getting his due.
After a trying journey that included stops at two prep schools and a Big 12 university, Johnson hopes to finally settle down with Syracuse this season. The 6-foot-7 forward will make his Orange debut after transferring to SU from Iowa State in May 2008, in an attempt to put his complicated past behind him.
"It's been a long road," said Craig Carroll, Johnson's brother. "But it was all for his making."
During his sophomore year of high school, Johnson was a 5-foot-9 point guard for his Corsicana (Texas) High School basketball team. He'd been playing basketball for about four years, after his brother had talked him off the gridiron in the seventh grade.
"I got on the phone and I said to him, 'Wesley, with your body frame, you're going to get taller over the years. And you're built and you're made for basketball," Carroll said.
Carroll's premonition about Johnson's size came eerily true just a few years later. It was the second week of June, and Johnson had just finished his second year of high school, when Carroll got a call from his mother.
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