This is Just the Beginning

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Christmas Day is different this year. For one, Mark Johnson and his wife Hope Dent are in Manhattan, where they found a quiet, peaceful abode at Tuttle Creek Lake in August after residing in Wichita for more than a decade. Anthony, their oldest son, is driving to the Little Apple from Lenexa, and Lauren, their daughter, is flying in from Las Vegas. They're spending Christmas Day together, the four of them.

Except there's five members of their family. So, this is different.

Today, Avery, the youngest, is in Orlando, Florida. The 19-year-old is preparing to lead No. 25 Kansas State onto the field against No. 18 NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl at Camping World Stadium on Thursday in his first full game as starting quarterback. His Christmas Day consists of a team brunch and practice followed by a team event at Universal Studios. This is all new for Avery, a true freshman from Wichita, who has never been apart from his family on Christmas. His family flies to Orlando on Tuesday.

"I guess this might be the new norm going forward," Hope says. "This will be new. Different. Holidays might take a turn and we'll just have to do things on other days."

For years, Christmas Eve was spent in the home of Larry and Bonnie Dent in Maize. They spoiled their three grandchildren. Hope says her mother always transformed their home into a "winter wonderland" in the weeks preceding a favorite holiday. On Christmas Day, after exchanging presents, the Johnson family spent the day with Maxine McCartney, Mark's mother, in Wichita. Maxine has 10 brothers and sisters. Each brother and sister had two or three children, and each of those children now have two or three children. Mark says there are 60 family members who live in Wichita. Most of them gather at Maxine's home for a traditional family dinner each Sunday after church. They reserve a banquet room to celebrate Christmas.

When he was young, Avery received a Hot Wheels electric car. When he was older, he received a video game console. These days, he's into shoes.

"My wife and I have held back on getting nice things for ourselves to make sure our kids have nice things," Mark says. "We have totally dedicated our lives to our children."

Avery is donned in a green practice jersey that bears a white No. 2 and he wears a purple headband, black shorts and white cleats, his back against a black chain-link fence, and the light-blue Pop-Tarts themed team bus idling in the parking lot about 50 yards away from the Orlando Health Field at The First Academy. K-State players are stretching out on the football field for practice. It's 9:45 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

Avery speaks as the bonafide starting quarterback for the first time since senior Will Howard hit the transfer portal in early December. And Avery, the dynamic 6-foot-2, 188-pounder, speaks well beyond his years.

"The main thing I've learned this year is just to stay patient," he says. "Everything is going to happen in God's timing. I've learned to get closer to my faith and closer to God and just know that whenever He says the time is right, everything will happen."

ESPN college football senior writer Pete Thamel on the College Gameday Podcast calls Avery "electric," adding, "He's going to be the face of the sport in the upcoming years. He's got like (NFL quarterback) Anthony Richardson electricity, like he's rare, man."

And Avery is just getting started.

Avery is the fifth true freshman quarterback in 48 years to start in a game for the Wildcats — he joins James Mack (1975), Duane Howard (1976), Josh Freeman (2006) and Will Howard (2020) — while he is just the second true freshman (Freeman, 2006) to start in a bowl game.

In seven appearances this season, he has completed 23-of-35 (65.7%) passes for 301 yards and three touchdowns and no interceptions and has 45 carries for 225 (5.0) yards and six touchdowns — tied for third in school history among freshmen.

Now he is days away from a highly anticipated starting debut.

How long has he been preparing for this stage?

Avery pauses.

"Really," he says, "my whole life."

• • •

Avery wears a tan-and-black Nike hoodie, black sweatpants, black socks and black slides as he stands inside Vanier Family Football Complex. It's February 2, 2022 — 43 days after he signed his letter-of-intent with the Wildcats. One of the highest-rated players ever to sign with K-State — he was the Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year, the No. 1-rated dual-threat passer by Rivals and the 41^st-rated overall player by 247Sports — he exudes confidence, yet is not brash; he speaks, but is not boastful; he smiles, but not too big; and he fits the part of a charismatic leader.

As for his goals while at K-State?

"A lot of winning," he says. "I have personal goals, but to be honest, the team goals mean more to me than any personal goals, whether that's winning the Big 12 or playing for a national championship. I just like to play football and I like to win football games."

K-State head coach Chris Klieman, who has put three of his quarterbacks into the NFL, spotted Avery's talent early on. K-State offered him a scholarship in March 2021. Over the course of his recruitment, Avery received 23 total scholarship offers. Fresh off being named an Elite 11 quarterback, he committed to K-State over Oregon and Washington in July 2022. He made things official when he signed with K-State with his family on hand during a ceremony at Maize High School on December 21, 2022.

"It's just the people," Avery says of his decision to attend K-State. "I mean, you get here, and you see FAMILY on the walls, and FAMILY in front of the locker room, and FAMILY on the stadium name. You see FAMILY everywhere and really it is a family here. The person to your right and to your left care about you, and they want what's best for you, and it's not just football — it's life, and these people here really love you.

"It made K-State an easy choice for me."

And Avery was an easy choice for K-State.

"Avery has got really good arm talent and that's the first thing we look at is really good arm talent," Klieman says at his 2023 early signing day news conference. "He sees the field really well and can throw it from the hash to the sideline and throws the vertical ball exceptionally well. Then there's the athleticism and ability to make plays with his feet. Many of us saw the clip in the US Army All-American game where he makes three or four guys miss and outruns everybody. That's pretty special. That's God-given ability to just roll and run like he does, and you combine that athleticism with the fact that he has tremendous arm talent, and we're excited about his future."

Avery leaves no doubt of his intentions as a Wildcat.

"Just know me coming in here, you're getting a hard worker, a competitor and a winner," he says. "In everything I've done, I've always wanted to win. I've always wanted to compete. You're always going to get 100% my best day in and day out. That's what I want the fans to know."

mood😎 pic.twitter.com/ZdMYfMTvBW
— Avery Johnson (@avery2johnson) July 6, 2022

There was always something different about Avery. When he was 2 years old, he memorized the uniform numbers of Anthony's little-league baseball team. Kids played in the dirt. Avery studied how players swung the bat. When Avery was 3, his basketball and t-ball coaches politely asked Mark and Hope if Avery could play up a level. He outraced Anthony's fifth-grade football team in 40-yard dashes. Mark, Anthony's football coach, tried to put Avery into competitive situations. And exercise his brain. Avery memorized 120 offensive plays. He read defenses, audibled out of plays, found the exact right one, then took care of the rest.

He was in the third grade.

"He beat them every single time," Mark says.

In the eighth grade, Avery wowed Maize High School varsity football head coach Gary Guzman, who saw the boy in the No. 2 jersey race past the competition for the first time. And he could throw. The possibilities were endless.

"He was just so athletic at that age," Guzman says. "He has been forever, I guess."

Avery played on the Maize High School freshman football team on Mondays and played on the varsity team on Fridays. He was an unstoppable force for the freshman squad while serving as backup quarterback to a senior on the varsity team. Oh, he played. He played in every varsity game his freshman year. He threw for more than 500 yards — "pretty good for a freshman part-timer," Guzman says — while honing his throwing mechanics and learning the offensive system. He had a silky-smooth delivery and put zip on the ball, finding receivers across the field. Guzman inserted Avery into multiple situations, regardless of opponent or score. Didn't matter. When he took the field, one thing stood out among his many attributes: His leadership. The juniors and seniors responded to him. The Maize High fans cheered for him.

"We had no problem putting him in there at any point during the game," Guzman says. "I mean, he could get it done. He did great things as a freshman and just kept getting better every year.

"He had long runs at any point in the game. He'd hurt you. You give him enough time and he was going to hurt you with the pass. It was no surprise when he threw the ball back across his body right on the money. He had a lot of velocity on the football."

As a sophomore, Avery threw for 2,109 yards and 25 touchdowns and just three interceptions while rushing for 10 scores on the ground. He earned first team all-state after throwing for 2,549 yards and 20 touchdowns while rushing for 1,080 yards and 22 touchdowns as a junior. As a senior, he threw for 2,768 yards and 29 touchdowns and three interceptions while rushing for 817 yards and 15 touchdowns in leading Maize to a 12-1 record. He was named Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year. He was selected to play in the All-American Bowl. He played in the 2023 Under Armour Next All-America Game inside — you guessed it — Camping World Stadium in Orlando — on January 3, 2023. He was also named a finalist for the Elite 11 quarterback competition.

"It went by so fast," Hope says of Avery's high school career. "Sometimes you just wish you could do it all over again. I just tried to soak up every moment and live in the moment. I knew it was going to go by in a blink of an eye."

Mark grows almost emotional when talking about his youngest son.

"Man, I'm so proud of him that my other two get mad at me," he says. "Avery is different, man. He's really different. He's just a special individual. He works harder than anybody. I guarantee you nobody on anybody's football team, somebody might be able to match his intensity, but you're not going to outwork him. He does well in the classroom, he's a very good person to people, and I'm just happy, very happy, and very proud of him."

So great was the recruiting interest that Guzman asked coaches to visit during his planning period at Maize High. On the field, Power 5 coach flew in to watch Avery throw for 30 minutes. This happened almost every weekday.

"It's the busiest I've ever been," Guzman says. "I mean, the coaches came from all over the place."

One coach in particular kept showing up: Collin Klein. The 2012 Heisman Trophy finalist, K-State quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator became a mainstay at Avery's football, basketball and baseball games.

"Avery really grew a strong bond with Coach Klein," Hope says. "It didn't matter where we were or what sport he was playing, Coach Klein was at the game. He was very consistent in his recruiting. In the beginning, Avery was really big into Arkansas and Coach (Kendal) Briles, but CK had patience and persistence. The person that CK was, I felt like Avery felt like he could trust him — him and Coach Klieman. They were both two great guys when they came to our house.

"You just got a different feel from those two."

• • •

Avery, with his long golden locks and contagious smile, saunters into the Wichita Union Stockyards at the Wichita Catbackers event May 23 looking like a guy who's at home. One of the most recognizable young men in Wichita and one of the nicest young men you'll meet, Johnson wears a purple polo and carefully pens his autograph again and again and again, and with every autograph comes another request, a photo, and another one — treasured memories for K-State fans to take home and cherish years from now.

He's a young man in his birthplace and just 14 miles from Maize High School Football Field. At the moment, about 500 gushing admirers fill the spacious building that shimmers in dark, polished wood.

"We have the best fan base in college football," Avery says. "The second I walked in here there was love and support from everywhere. Just being able to sign autographs and take pictures and get to know fans is great. To be loved before I even step on the field just shows you what this fan base is all about. You see the love everywhere."

While the future awaits, and the present entails meals and conditioning — he maintained a 5,000-calorie diet to add weight — the past begins with the story of Avery's long hair, which he says that he began growing in kindergarten. The long hair earned him nicknames such as "Sunshine" when he was young, and the hair became an identity at high school.

"I love the look," he says. "I feel like a lot of people recognize me for having long hair and it's just stuck with me, and I've embraced it. I've always had it, so I've never thought about what it'd be like without it."

The legendary hair has been ever-present in photos as Avery poses and smiles with his many fans.

"I tried to say humble through it all (in high school)" he says. "I didn't ever want to walk around like I had a huge head. Anytime anybody approached me or wanted an autograph or a picture, I always tried to open up to them, take a picture with them, ask them their name and ask how they're doing.

"I feel like kindness and respect goes such a long way now-a-days and sometimes people forget about that."

• • •

Here's something most people might not know about Avery: He dislikes big cities. He doesn't like driving 10 or 15 minutes anywhere. Anthony and Lauren love big cities. Avery prefers a town like…Manhattan.

"Avery has always been a small-town kid," Hope says. "He doesn't need a lot of things to do. He basically is football, school and rest. And he'll play some video games here and there."

Mark and Hope have lived in Manhattan nearly six months.

"I love where we live," Hope says. "We live on Tuttle Creek Lake, so I'm really enjoying the peace of that. I also like the small-town feel. It seems like everyone is really friendly, it's not as fast-paced, people take time to talk with you. I think when you live in bigger cities you don't get that all the time."

Here's another thing about Avery: He's a food critic. At least he is a food critic when it comes to dishes that his mother prepares for him.

"Avery as a kid liked to watch cooking shows, so he thinks that he is a food critic," Hope says. "He likes to grade my entrees as they're set on the table for him. He grades me on appearance and taste. He thinks that I can't cook chicken very well, so that's the joke in the house: Mom can't cook chicken."

Here's another thing about Avery: He loves people.

"What's Avery's best quality?" Mark says. "Avery's best quality is that he cares about people. To go further, he cares about kids. I think a lot of time when adults approach Avery, it might make him a little bit uncomfortable because he doesn't necessarily know what to say. But you take a kid that's special needs, or a kid who looks up to him, and he'll effortlessly talk to make that kid feel special.

"He's an honest kid and he's one of the most hard-working and special people I've known in my life."

Yes, we had been waiting for this moment, his first trot onto the field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, the sellout crowd of 52,066 screaming, the lights beaming, and his cleats meeting new field turf, this phenom, still so incredibly young, yet undeniably talented.

When fate took form and Avery took the field as No. 16 K-State held a 38-0 lead over Southeast Missouri with 3 minutes, 12 seconds left in the third quarter on September 2, dreams became a biting and riveting reality.

Avery appeared undaunted and unfazed when he took the field, the K-State student section going nuts and chanting his name and alumni standing and cheering and the public-address announcer belting, "NOW ENTERING THE GAME, NUMBER FIVE, AVERY JOHNSON."

The crowd, yes, the crowd erupted, and as far as crowd eruptions go, this crowd eruption seemed special.

"That just brought tears to my eyes, you know?" Hope says. "Wow. I'm lost for words. The first time he came into the game, to hear fans shouting his name, I mean, I wish I could've recorded it so I could replay it because I was just living in the moment and taking it all in. It brought tears to my eyes."

Avery did not disappoint.

He scored a touchdown on his very first drive as a Wildcat.

The question, the one on everybody's mind since the start of spring, was how well Avery, a midyear enrollee, was acclimating himself to the Wildcats' offense. It's an aggressive, complex system primed to produce points at a rapid rate, with bells and whistles available to a knowledgeable trigger man. Early impressions indicated that the playbook wasn't too big for Avery. Now Avery landed on this big stage, his canvas, where designed plays and improvisation meet in sweet harmony.

Boom, a 15-yard rush down the right side. Boom, a 16-yard completion. Boom, a 24-yard completion.

And so, we saw the start, we were all witnesses to Avery's official introduction, how Johnson took a shotgun snap, showed patience as he tucked the football and darted to his right, outraced three defenders toward the outside, then instantly planted, allowing a host of defenders to overrun the play, then cut inside, caught a block, and glided seven yards into the end zone.

Boom. Touchdown, Avery Johnson.

Then on October 15, we witnessed Avery's rush after rush and touchdown after touchdown in the most significant action of his young career, as he came off the sideline in the first quarter and scored five rushing touchdowns in the game — five! — to tie Collin Klein (2011) and Jonathan Beasley (2000) for the most rushing touchdowns in school history in a 38-21 victory at Texas Tech. There is no way to grasp the heights that he might achieve in his career. That seems far, far away, a distant star out in gridiron darkness, yet a stage waits, yes, a stage awaits, one shared by Klein, Bishop, Roberson, and the greats, which is only to suggest that Avery either already possesses or could possess the tools to become one of the finest dual-threat quarterbacks ever to wear purple and white.

From his 2-yard touchdown rush on his first possession in the first quarter to his 5-yard rushing touchdown in the second quarter, to his 30-yard and 11-yard rushing touchdowns in the third, and his 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth, Avery made the most of every opportunity, his competitiveness shining through each time he took the field. He completed 8-of-9 passes for 77 yards. He had 12 carries for 91 yards and five touchdowns on the ground.

Not only did Avery tie the K-State single-game record for rushing touchdowns, but his five rushing touchdowns tied for the most by a FBS player this season, and they were the most nationally by a true freshman in a game since Oklahoma's Samaje Perine had five against Kansas on November 22, 2014.

"Before I even got to college, it's just my dad, he's always let me know to always have the most confidence in the world, and whatever situation I'm put in I'm blessed and highly favored by God to be able to just go out and do what I really feel like he put me on this earth to do," Avery says. "I just have a lot of confidence in myself.

"Everybody in this program believing in me and being confident in me, it just makes my job easy."

Cooper Beebe, the senior left guard and first offensive lineman in K-State history to earn Consensus All-America honors, stood inside the Vanier Family Football Complex one day.

The topic: Avery.

"The dude is such a playmaker," he says. "The thing that makes Avery special is just the confidence that he plays with. It's something you don't see in freshmen very often. Confidence is something that's really key to having success at the college level and to see his confidence and his ability to make plays is something special and I can't wait."

Senior linebacker Austin Moore recalls the first time that he knew Avery was special.

"Man, it was our first player's practice this summer," he says. "We did 7-on-7s and just watching Avery move around and throw the ball, I knew he was for real. He was playing against older guys and guys who I knew were good players, and he was making them look silly.

He pauses.

"Pretty much the first time I saw Avery practice," he says, "I knew he was special."

• • •

And now, here we are, it's Christmas Day — 18 days after Avery delivered the big present to K-State faithful. In a video on the K-State football account that turns into a social media sensation, Avery, who wore No. 5 during the regular season, unveiled his new No. 2 jersey — the same number he wore in high school — and delivered a message.

"For me, it's never been just a number," he says in the video. "It's a mentality, an attitude. It's a tradition.

"And although my number changed, our mission hasn't."

Mission hasn't changed@avery2johnson pic.twitter.com/aoavAwKp4Y
— K-State Football (@KStateFB) December 7, 2023

Mark expounds upon the statement.

"His number has changed from 5 to 2," Mark says, "but his mission of coming here to try and win a national championship hasn't."

In this day in age of players transferring to other academic institutions, and sometimes departing to follow a coach (Collin Klein left K-State to become offensive coordinator at Texas A&M in December), Avery's commitment to K-State is unwavering heading into the Pop-Tarts Bowl — and beyond.

"He's here, he's with us, he's excited about this game, and he's excited about the future in leading this program," Klieman says.

Adds Hope: "For the fans, just know that you're getting everything that you thought you would get. Avery is going to work and work and outwork and work as hard as he can for this university and for this football team."

What does Avery want to show in the Pop-Tarts Bowl?

"Really, that I can throw the ball," he says. "I've proven that I'm really electric with my legs, but really just the people inside the facility know what I'm capable of with my arm. I just want to show that I can go out there and the whole team can go out there and put together a full performance."

Yes, Christmas Day is different this year.

Avery, apart from his family, is immersed in work with his football family.

"Avery has a job to do," Mark says. "Avery is focused on the bowl game."

Every step along his journey leads to another chapter. And another. And another exciting chapter will unfold on the field at Camping World Stadium on Thursday evening. That's when Avery will take the field and lead the Wildcats. His proud family will be cheering him on along with thousands of K-State fans across the globe. This is it. The bright stage. The stage that Avery has prepared for all his life. Against No. 18 NC State. Perhaps the biggest game of his life. What will happen in Avery's starting debut? Nobody knows. But know one thing: Indomitable Avery Johnson, with those golden locks, possesses all the confidence in the world and has the Wildcats in a good spot going forward. And that's huge. That's a win. And you know what else? What's so great about all this?

This, really, is just the beginning.

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Cooper Beebe

Will Howard

Avery Johnson

Austin Moore

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