You can take Stephen Johnson to Central America. You can confront the Kentucky quarterback with challenges — repairing churches, rebuilding fences, laying cement — that stretch his skills.
Yet even on a mission trip this summer to Belize with his family and other members of the Abundant Living Family Church, Johnson couldn’t be rattled.
“He was asked to do a lot of things, maybe, he hadn’t done a lot of before,” the UK quarterback’s father, also named Stephen Johnson, said of the trip. “But you know Stephen: He just kept his head and put in hard work.”
The Cats quarterback is especially close with his sister, a senior forward/midfielder on Southern California’s 2016 women’s soccer NCAA championship team. Her presence at the New Mexico State game was a surprise to her older brother.
“After the game, he ran over to his sister first, not his mother. I haven’t let him forget about that,” Paula Johnson jokes.
On Nov. 26, when Johnson threw for 338 yards and three scores and ran for 83 yards and got the better of Lamar Jackson as UK stunned archrival U of L 41-38, his parents were spending their 22nd wedding anniversary at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.
Is watching your son outshine the Heisman Trophy favorite in an intrastate rivalry game the best wedding anniversary ever?
