[6/27/03]Jesse Johnson woke this morning to a phone call asking for his reaction at being hired as the new basketball coach at Warren Central.

“Who did they hire?” he asked from his Meridian motel room where he is coaching Warren Central’s team in the state games.

When told it was him the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees had selected, his sleepiness quickly disappeared.

“It’s exciting and a dream come true to be the head basketball coach,” said Johnson, 41, who came back to Vicksburg as WC’s 9th-grade coach last year, after a 20-year stint in the United States Navy.

Johnson beat out four other candidates for the position vacated by Preston Wilson, who left for Woodlawn High in Shreveport to be closer to his family.

“As a senior, I am very excited,” said Ferdale Carr, also in Meridian as a member of the State Games team. “Coach Wilson came in when I was a sophomore and we didn’t want to go through another big change. Coach Johnson was the best fit for us.”

The team lost to Southeast Lauderdale by four points on Thursday night, but Johnson said trying to prepare his team with the coaching position in flux was difficult. None of the players knew Johnson had been hired.

Parents and players made a strong push to promote Johnson to head coach of the varsity.

“I appreciate that a lot, having the parents and players behind me,” Johnson said.

Johnson played football at Vicksburg High, but changed to basketball at Mary Holmes College in West Point. After two years there, he moved on to play basketball at Jackson State.

Following college, Johnson enlisted in the Navy and spent the last two decades there as a Mass Management Specialist.

“That’s a long name for a cook,” he said with a chuckle.

He moved on to assistant basketball coach at Morris College, an NAIA school in Sumter, S.C., and spent three years there as an assistant, although he remained active in the Navy.

A desire to be closer to his family brought him back to Vicksburg at the beginning of last season, where he was hired as assistant coach for the Vikings.

He instantly had a strong relationship with Wilson, he said, and had mixed emotions when the second-year Vikings’ coach left for Louisiana.

“I walked in and we clicked the day we met,” Johnson said. “We have very similar coaching philosophies.”

Johnson, who will try to lead Warren Central back to the playoffs for the second straight year, said he brings an intense style of both offense and defense to the floor. His military background leaves little room for discipline problems.

“I can tolerate mistakes in the context of hustle, as long as they are working hard,” Johnson said. “I can’t tolerate frivolous mistakes.”

Johnson inherits a team coming off its first state playoff appearance in nearly a decade and a 17-11 record. Several players, including Carr, Russell Johnson, Brian Phelps and Seddrick Williams make up the nucleus.

The future is bright, Johnson said.

“We’ll try to continue the success we had last year and build on it,” Johnson said. “We have a good group coming back.”