Earl Johnson
2005 Mr. Homecoming, BFA 1989
A wealth of emotions are felt on a college football field — from the anxiety and anticipation of the game to the joy of victory or sadness of defeat. For a college student athlete, it’s an emotion, a game and a time in your life that will never be forgotten. On Saturday, September 24, Earl Johnson will feel a new emotion on the Skelly Stadium football field, where he experienced so many during his four years as a Golden Hurricane, when he walks into the stadium as Mr. Homecoming 2005.
“I know the caliber of people I’m surrounded by at this university, and for me to be singled out among some of the people who helped fashion the person I am today is a truly humbling, yet very rewarding experience,” Johnson said.
The fact that Johnson (BFA ‘89) has been a part of The University of Tulsa family through his undergraduate studies and college football career to his current position as the senior associate dean of admission, makes this honor 19 years in the making.
Upon his high school graduation, universities in Texas, Nebraska and Oklahoma were offering Johnson football scholarships. But Johnson was looking for more than just a field to play on.
Johnson came to TU, and devoted just as much of himself to his studies as he did to his football career. A brief career with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League was cut short when he sustained a torn quadriceps muscle. This led him back to Tulsa.
Johnson looked at his injury as a sign that there was something else he was meant to do. He was right.
Today, Johnson is widely recognized as one of the Southwest’s leading admission professionals, touching the lives of thousands of students. He alone is responsible for several hundred students coming to TU over the past 15 years.
He’s the 2005 Southwest Region chair of the Collegeboard, a non-profit organization that administers the SAT, PSAT/NMSQT®, and the Advanced Placement Program®(AP); faculty member of the Texas Association for College Admission Counseling Summer Institute for College Admission Professionals; faculty member for the NCAA Coaches Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana; member of TU’s inaugural Quality Service Council; and a recipient of the Service That Achieves Results (STAR) award for service to the University.
But his most recent accomplishment was recruiting a very special person to join the TU family — his daughter, Ashley.
Finding his passion, fulfilling his purpose and helping others are the values Johnson lives by, the strengths he brings to the University and the ideals he strives to pass along to others. As Johnson steps onto the field as Mr. Homecoming 2005, his emotions — and the esteem he’s garnered from the University — will be running high.