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From backyard to Olympic glory: How Terseus Liebenberg shaped Arshad Nadeem | The Express Tribune
The South African coach urges more Diamond League participation for the Olympic record-holder
Olympic Gold medallist Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan once again is determined to be at the podium in the Asian Athletics Championships. PHOTO: REUTERS
KARACHI:
If humility had a face and more so a voice that is both friendly and encouraging, it would be that of the world-renowned athletics coach and author Terseus Liebenberg.
He is a portal, more or less, for people who want to understand how the international javelin community is close-knit, yet trusting, and open to sharing knowledge.
While Pakistan is seeing a rise in the popularity of javelin throw because of Olympian Arshad Nadeem, it is necessary to understand how this community helped him achieve excellence in one of the world’s oldest sports, with that stunning 92.97m throw at Stade de France at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
They say it takes a village to raise a child; it is the same when one looks at the journeys of sports champions. Mostly, it is a community that comes together for that champion athlete, too.
The legacies and legends are a cumulative result of how there are cultural, professional, and human exchanges that shape the fate of national histories through sports.
In this case, for Pakistan, as Arshad’s gold medal and Olympic record-making throw marked the end of the 32-year Olympic Games medal drought for Pakistan, it brought a summer gold medal to the country after 40 years. It was also the first time that an athlete from the country won an Olympic gold medal in an individual sport.
PHOTO COURTESY: NEWS 24
Pakistan’s and Arshad’s link to this community is, undoubtedly, Terseus.
When asked where his love for a sport like javelin throw comes from, his reply is both innocent and insightful, and something that Pakistanis can now relate to, courtesy of Arshad’s feat and witnessing it, albeit second-hand.
“It was such a nice feeling to see the javelin floating in the air,” explained Terseus. “When I was a kid, my dad, who was a physical education teacher, used to bring javelins home. So, my brother and I would play with them in our backyard.”
Terseus went on to play at the national level, and his lifelong love kept him glued to the competition well into his 40s and 50s, and he only gave up participating in the seniors event when his knees gave up.
But it is his coaching career that is fascinating. Pakistanis have a lot to thank him for; his brilliance is imprinted in the careers of the greatest throwers in the world, while his resume is impressive as he coached the South African athletics team in 2008, 2012, and 2016.
In fact, there is a poignant connection, specifically when it comes to the Commonwealth Games history, when Arshad broke the record with 90.18m at the 2022 edition, a few months after receiving training from a South African. That record was set by another one of Tersues’ pupils and former world champion Marius Corbett, who made the games record of 88.75m in 1998.
The South African maestro’s more recent times like that of Jo-Ané van Dyk, who got a silver medal at Paris Olympics, but also he has been the man behind helping Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem in winning the gold medal and creating an Olympic record with a massive 92.97m throw at Stade de France last year, although he would not take the credit for it.
“Paris Olympics were my favourite Games,” he answered to this correspondent’s question about his favourite Olympics yet.
He replied with a delight that one could feel through the phone.
“In the 2016 Rio Olympics, we won a silver with South Africa’s Sunette Viljoen, and now van Dyk, and it was an honour to coach her as she is an awesome woman and athlete, with a lot of integrity, and she has impeccable values and work ethic.
“And of course, it was wonderful to see Arshad throw; it was super.”
That is where his humility shows, more than he probably knows, because it is clear that his teaching has come in extremely handy to Arshad’s team, even though Terseus was more in the consultation role than actual coaching since last year.
Terseus had first seen Arshad in 2022 when the latter was sent for the training in Potchefstroom, and since then, the 69-year-old has been a guiding force to the Pakistani athlete’s team.
It is a fruitful relationship that has given Arshad enough to win the 2022 Commonwealth Games record-breaking win, 2022 Islamic Solidarity Games gold medal, 2023 World Championship silver medal, and the history-making Olympic Games performance in 2024.
The Pakistani athlete’s own coach, Salman Butt, has not been a javelin throw expert himself; in fact, he has been a national discus throw champion in his younger days. Still, he does not have any coaching qualification, according to the Athletics Federation of Pakistan, but he has learned most things on the job since 2022.
He was appointed to work as a coordinator when Arshad first went to get initial coaching in South Africa.
Fiaz Bokhari mentored and trained Arshad till the Tokyo Olympics, where he took fifth place in his Summer Games debut, creating history by becoming the first track and field athlete to compete in the final. But later, Arashd was left coachless for a while, before Butt was appointed as the coordinator/translator in possibly a co-coaching capacity, as the athlete needed help in understanding instructions from the English language, right before the 2022 World Athletics Championships and the Commonwealth Games. Since then, Butt has been more or less a self-appointed coach, manager, mentor, and one-man army for the support staff.
Butt’s main job was to help Arshad understand Terseus’ teaching and train in Potchefstroom, and later continue to implement the technical training plans in Lahore with regular consultations from Terseus.
“I have coached Arshad in 2022 and 2023, and from then onward it has been a more consultative role, where I analyse the video, see the training design. But I am so humbled that I have been able to play a small part in Pakistan’s sports history.
“I was honoured to have received a letter from the Athletics Federation of Pakistan, even Arshad, Salman, and his physician, Dr Ali Bajwa, had been wonderful.
“I am very happy with Arshad’s achievement, and I hope to be of service in the future too.”
A peek into Terseus’ personal journey to building the javelin community in Potchefstroom
In Tersues’s personal journey, he dedicated his life to perfecting the knowledge of javelin throw. His book is one of the resources that can guide not only the coaches but also the javelin throw fan, and he has thanked Dr Frank Dick for taking him under his wing in a time when the South African sports community had limited avenues to compete and learn.
“My competition years were when we had apartheid, so it was difficult, and we were banned, but I was always curious to know more, and I was always searching for knowledge, and that’s when I took part in the coaching conference at the Loughborough Summer School Athletics Course of 1985.
“It was more than a conference, it was a week-long program, and Dr Frank knew how difficult it was for me to acquire the knowledge of the sport, so he helped us a lot.
“In fact, Dr Frank played a key role. He got us, Arshad, Salman Butt, and me together.”
Tersues has clear principles in the life he lives and the global javelin throw community he has helped to build in Potchefstroom, South Africa, where the world’s greatest javelin thrower and current coach of Neeraj Chopra, Jan Zelezny, has been returning to the camp since 1992.
Another renowned coach, Finland’s Kari Ihalainen, is a regular fixture in Potchefstroom too. Terseus’ hometown is a place where athletes want to come to if they want to train for javelin, with a wide network of experts connected to him.
Tersues was also named the best coach of the last three decades by the South African Athletics Association in 2022.
Potchefstroom has also been a place where Tersues has been athletics manager at the North-West University, which has been a great program to hone the skills of the talented new athletes, too.
He lives with ideals like, “Learn as if you were to live forever; Live as if you were to die tomorrow,” and “movement is life, and life is movement.”
When one talks to him, it is difficult not to smile and feel motivated, and this quality of his certainly shows that he is a coach who has spent a great deal of time with athletes shaping their careers and their characters simultaneously.
“The world javelin community is very open to sharing the knowledge and experience, and, amazingly, we have greats like Jan and Kari with us, and it truly shows that they are not only training athletes to follow great examples, but also to become great leaders too,” Terseus reflected on quality of people and shared experience of the old and new professionals in the field.
The huge shift in javelin from Europe to Asia and Africa
Javelin as a sport is changing very quickly, and one of the shifts has been the emergence of South Asian throwers like Neeraj and Arshad.
“Just 15 years ago, who couldn’t even think that South Asians would be winning in javelin throw? It was more of a Scandinavian sport, but then Europe came ahead.
“But Neeraj brought this incredible energy with his wins, and what is happening now is a huge swing of javelin; we see throwers from Asia, Africa, and China.”
When asked if he could name the throwers that one can watch out for, he had a quick list for women. This included his athlete South Africa’s Jo-Ane du Plessis, Serbia’s Adriana Vilagoš, China’s Ziyi Yan, while when it comes to the men’s side of the competition he feels it is hard to pick, but atheltes like Julian Weber has been performing well, however, he had faced stomach issues in Tokyo during the 2025 World Athletics Championship that kept him out of the podium, similarly, Brazil’s Luis Mauricio de Silva, Keshorn Walcott and Neeraj along with Arshad are all wonderful giants with big throws.
Arshad must prioritise Diamond League meets
He believes that it is a wave of the shift from Europe to Asia and Africa in javelin throw that will last a long time, with more javelin throwers coming from India after Neeraj’s stellar 2020 Olympics gold medal, and he is hoping to see more Pakistanis take up the sport.
He feels Yasir Sultan is a great addition to the newer throwers, but the youngster still needs more exposure at the Diamond Leagues in Europe, much like Arshad, who has been painfully absent from the meets, even though the fans and the organisers want him to participate in them.
He recalled that when he first saw Arshad in 2022, he felt that the boy from Mian Chunnu, Khanewal, had something special, which could be worked with.
“You can pick that up. I was amazed when I saw him the first time. I knew very little about who he was. I never saw his performance before, but the thing that really defines him is his competitive mindset. He is incredible; he has that big-match mentality and temperament. He is introverted, focused, and a dream to work with. I remember he had that incredible pull on the javelin, great leverage, and amazing block, but we worked on the last three steps with him back then, and improved the connection of the upper and lower body.
“He has a very strong-willed and strong mind. I have known some of the best throwers in the world, and Arshad is in the league of his own when it comes to it,” said Tersues.
Happiness begets success
Although Arshad is going through a rough patch, with a calf injury and a surgery that took place on it only two months ago, and his coach is facing a lifetime ban by the Athletics Federation of Pakistan, Terseus believes that Arshad can come back.
But more importantly, for every athlete, they need to enjoy what they are doing.
His parting message was that success is the result of happiness, and it is not that happiness is the result of success. And so he wishes happiness and urges all to dream big and achieve them.
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Siena Saints men’s lacrosse coach Liam Gleason died after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a fall at his home, the school announced on Wednesday. He was 41.
With Gleason at the helm, Siena went to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) championship and earned a berth into the NCAA Tournament during the 2025 season.
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Siena men’s lacrosse coach Liam Gleason has died at 41. (Carlisle Stockton/Stockton Photo)
“A sudden, senseless loss carries a kind of pain that defies understanding,” Siena University president Chuck Seifert said in a statement. “It’s hard to imagine anyone more universally loved and admired than Liam. Our community was blessed by Coach Gleason’s life.”
Gleason’s family started a GoFundMe to help “ease the burden” on his wife and three children as they navigated the tragedy.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL ASSISTANT COACH SHAWN CLARK DEAD AT 50
Siena men’s lacrosse coach Liam Gleason coaching his team. (Carlisle Stockton/Stockton Photo)
“The Gleason family has suffered the most unimaginable tragedy with Liam suffering a traumatic brain injury,” the GoFundMe read. “Anyone who knows him knows what a light he is in this world. Liam is the best father, husband, brother, son, brother-in-law, uncle, coach, and friend. His heart is as big as his 6’5 frame, and the love he gives to those around him is immeasurable.
“Liam’s wife, Jaclyn, and their three beautiful children — Kennedy, Penn, and Tate — who now face a long road of emotional and financial challenges in the weeks, months, and years ahead.”
Gleason coached at Siena for the last seven seasons and was named the conference Coach of the Year in the MAAC and the Eastern College Athletic Conference this past season. Siena was 11-5 overall and earned its first national ranking in 14 years.
The New York native played college lacrosse at the University of Albany.
Siena men’s lacrosse coach Liam Gleason hugs a staffer. (Carlisle Stockton/Stockton Photo)
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Officials said his funeral will be Saturday on Siena’s campus.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Sports
Texans star credits head coach DeMeco Ryans for NFL’s top defense as team aims for another division title
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Will Anderson Jr. has had high expectations since the Houston Texans traded up to the third pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, and he’s lived up to the hype.
After winning Defensive Rookie of the Year, he’s put together back-to-back double-digit sack seasons and is a key component of a stacked defense.
The 16.5 points per game Houston allows is the lowest in the league, and it has again put them right in the thick of the AFC South race.
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Houston Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. leaves the field after defeating the Buffalo Bills at NRG Stadium. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)
Anderson was a division champ in each of his first two seasons, and his defense may just be the main reason they can get a third.
The third-year star gives all the credit to his head coach, former linebacker DeMeco Ryans.
“It’s a testament to coach DeMeco and the culture that he’s brought here and the culture that he’s built,” Anderson told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “The way that he played defense and the way he expects his defense to be played, he’s brought people here from coaches to players that can run the defense he wants to run. It’s just a testament to the guys he’s brought in, we all mesh really well together, we share the same mentality, and when you share the same mentality, good things happen.”
Houston Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. (51) celebrates after scoring a touchdown on a Seattle Seahawks fumble in the second half of an NFL football game Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Anderson is hoping he can bring positive vibes from his help in the community to the field. With the help of Raising Cane’s, he attended a Boys & Girls Club in Houston to deliver bikes and helmets to celebrate the holiday season.
“It’s a blessing and I just give all thanks to God, man. He’s blessed me with this platform and to be able to be a servant and give back in my community. Single-parent households, two-parent households, grandparents raising kids, it doesn’t matter, man. Everybody needs to feel love this season of Christmas. So to be able to partner with Raising Cane’s and the Boys & Girls Club, it’s just been a blessed feeling,” Anderson said.
“I remember my first bike, and I wanted the opportunity to help these kids get their first bike. I have a whole bunch of nieces and nephews, so it’s been awesome to see all the smiles and joy and cheerfulness on all the kids’ faces getting their new bikes and riding them around the gym.”
A division win would surely bring even more smiles to those same children’s faces, and the final stretch begins this Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Will Anderson Jr. partnered with Raising Cane’s to give out gifts at a local Boys & Girls Club. (Raising Cane’s)
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“To go into this playoff push that we have, it’s a blessing,” he said. “I’m super excited for the challenge that we have coming up. We just got to keep executing the fundamentals, man, taking it one day at a time. Keep playing our brand football and just raising our standard of who we are the team, and just playing to our standards.”
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FLAU’JAE JOHNSON KNOWS it doesn’t make sense. In theory, yes, it should be easier to find things when her room is clean. But logic doesn’t apply here. Not today. Not after the cleaners came through and rearranged the delicate ecosystem she calls her organized chaos, where hoodies overflow from drawers and every cable strewn across her desk has purpose.
This is how she ends up rummaging around for her computer mouse. Desk? Nope. Nightstand? Nothing. Finally, she spots it on the top shelf of the bookcase near her bed.
“Like, why would they put it all the way up here?” she asks, shaking her head.
But Johnson doesn’t linger. She has work to do.
She drops into her chair — the one marked with the 2023 Final Four logo — and fires up her desktop, the screen crowded with audio files. She pulls out her mic and slips on her headset, back in her element — even if the room around her isn’t.
This is Johnson’s home studio. It’s where she makes the music that has helped place her in a national spotlight and set her apart from her peers. It’s where she recorded her latest EP, and what got her on the ESPY Awards stage with Lil Wayne in July and at the BET Awards in October.
It’s a haven for her, a corner where she can focus on one of the many hyphenates of her preferred career path: rapper-basketball star-businesswoman. She spends nearly every free moment here, though this year, those moments are few and fleeting.
This season, Johnson is tucking away that superstar persona and focusing on being one of the best college basketball players in the nation. Johnson and LSU (8-0) are off to a perfect start as the Tigers have scored at least 100 points in an NCAA-record eight consecutive games, albeit against a weak nonconference schedule. A month into her senior year at LSU, it’s her last chance to give this team all she has left.
It’s an easy transition to make, Johnson says. While it’s all about her on stage, it’s about her entire team on the court. She remains dedicated to the work behind the scenes, and she will do whatever it takes to be the best at whatever she sets out to do.
“You’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing,” she says. “I make my life revolve around basketball.”
It’s part of the deal she made with LSU coach Kim Mulkey. “She said in the offseason, you can go rap, go to Germany, I don’t care what you do. But in season, you’ve got to focus on basketball.”
Johnson wants to spend her final months in Baton Rouge working toward her second NCAA title. She helped LSU win its first national championship in women’s basketball as a freshman in 2023. Now, she wants to test her leadership skills. She wants to do everything she can to prove she deserves to be a lottery pick in the WNBA draft.
She wants to prove basketball is — and always will be — the No. 1 priority.
“I get to live like Hannah Montana,” Johnson says. “Best of both worlds.”
IT’S MARCH 2025, and Johnson has a decision to make. The season has barely ended, only a few days removed from LSU’s Elite Eight loss to UCLA, and the emotions are still raw. The 5-foot-10 guard and her mother, Kia Brooks, begin talking through what’s next, turning over every scenario they can think of.
The WNBA draft is two weeks away. Johnson can declare and step into the best women’s basketball league in the world. Or she can return to LSU for her senior year and take another run at something she isn’t sure she is ready to leave behind.
“Don’t make [this] decision when you’re emotional,” Brooks remembers telling her 22-year-old. She wasn’t saying it as Johnson’s mom, but as her manager, the person who has watched Johnson make hundreds of business decisions. But this one was different. This one could change the trajectory of the rest of Johnson’s life.
The benefits of the WNBA were plenty. The professional platform. The endorsements. The chance to grow her game against the top talent in the world. But there was another feeling Johnson couldn’t ignore — something that kept pressing at her as she weighed her options.
Mulkey gave Johnson and Brooks space to work through it. Even from afar, the coach had a sense of where the conversation might land.
“I never worried about it,” Mulkey told ESPN. “I knew the quality of person and family that I signed, and she wanted that college degree. And she’s not going to leave somewhere where she’s got unfinished business.”
“I didn’t want to go out on a loss when I didn’t have to,” Johnson says. “If I have another year, why not try to go out as a champion? I owe it to LSU. I owe it to Baton Rouge. A lot of players don’t stay four years anymore. I’m loyal to the soil.”
She had every reason to feel ready for the next level. She started all 36 regular-season games, averaging 11.0 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.9 assists and winning SEC Freshman of the Year during the 2022-23 NCAA title run. After two more Elite Eight appearances, she could have walked away content after her junior season.
“Her mindset is, ‘I’m going to get better,'” Mulkey says. “Anything scouts question, she wants to show she can do. … Her work ethic is unbelievable.”
Over the past three seasons, Johnson has become the steadying presence on a roster that has turned over constantly. Teammates graduated, left for the WNBA or transferred, while new stars arrived. Through all of it, Johnson has remained the program’s anchor and the last tie to the championship team.
“No matter who transferred, no matter who came in, no matter who left, I was always [me],” Johnson says. “I think that’s what just made me so good. I’m always able to adapt.”
Leaving LSU never felt like a real option.
“That don’t even sound right. I’m a Tiger ’til I die,” she says.
“She doesn’t think the grass is greener somewhere else, even on her bad days, even when she’s aggravated at Coach,” Mulkey says. “She understands you just don’t bail out.”
JOHNSON SITS ON her couch in gray sweats, a bright orange Supreme hoodie and a colorful headscarf, flipping through a notebook. She breezes by sketches she has drawn for a clothing line, mock-ups for what her record label logo could look like and rap lyrics she has scratched down.
“I’m always jotting things down that I want to do,” she says, scanning the pages. “Music, clothing, basketball, housing, beauty, film, TV. Different lists all at once, but it just makes it seem a little more attainable, you know?”
Johnson stops flipping and points to words on the page.
“Act like who you want to become,” she reads. She sets new goals for herself each month and outlines them in her journal, whether it’s a new task she wants to try or something she wants to improve on in basketball.
At this stage of her career, Johnson understands how to use her time wisely. But it took a while to find the right balance.
Early in her freshman season, Johnson would arrive at practice three minutes before it started with her shoes still in her hands. She still got her work in and found success, but Mulkey swiftly pointed out the nonchalant approach couldn’t continue.
But Johnson overcorrected. She’d wake up at 5 a.m. every day to get in a workout, but instead of that helping her performance, it ran her ragged. She missed the SEC tournament last season because she had shin splints — what she now says was the result of her not taking care of her body.
“I had to tell her many times, put the ball down … you’re doing too much,” Mulkey says.
Johnson finally has struck the right chord between studying the game, training and rest. She is intentional with her time, and the steps she takes to get better. This basketball season, “preparedness” is the word she has plastered above her locker, and it’s what’s guiding her.
It’s evident in the pages she fills in her countless journals, writing down everything she wants to accomplish in her life, as well as just what she needs to get done that day. She details the exact tasks she needs to complete to achieve it all.
Wake up and meditate. Breakfast. Ten pushups, 50 situps. Do laundry. Load the dishwasher. Feed Champ (Johnson’s pet bearded dragon).
“I still go through the small stuff, too. I’m proud that I put my clothes in a washer and dryer. Even though you do great big things, you still have to be regular,” Johnson says.
“You could look at it and be like, this is too much, or you could look at it and be like, bro, this is everything I ever asked for. That’s how I look at it. Like Flau, you’re literally the only person in the world that’s doing what you’re doing. And so I take pride in that. And when I feel like I can’t go on anymore, I kind of just think about that: Nobody else is doing this. Of course it’s hard.”
“BOBBY!” JOHNSON EXCLAIMS as she turns into LSU assistant coach Bob Starkey’s office at 7:50 a.m. for a 30-minute film session. They meet every weekday at 8 a.m. sharp.
Starkey is a legend in his own right. The Tigers’ associate head coach joined Mulkey in Baton Rouge ahead of their national championship season. He was also a part of the staff that took LSU to five straight Final Fours during the Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles years.
It was Johnson’s idea to have these sessions with Starkey — she knows how his tutelage can shape her development. Sometimes she sends him plays from a game she wants to go over ahead of time. On this day, they go through game tape from the night before, their Nov. 17 matchup against Tulane.
“Oh, I was perfect in this first half,” Johnson says as the tape begins.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Starkey replies. There’s a long pause of silence. “You did have a good first half, though.”
Starkey spends the next half hour picking apart Johnson’s game. He highlights her patience. He points out that she had too many right-hand drives. He compliments the improvements she has made this year, being in stance when she’s looking for help, instead of relaxing too much. He teases Johnson for turning over the ball because she said she was too speedy. He lays into her for missing too many free throws. He celebrates her presence on the board.
“That’s an NBA move,” he says. “You can be the best relocator in the league.”
As Starkey bounces back and forth from the good and the bad, Johnson’s posture switches from sitting up straight and smiling to slumping down in disgust. But she clings to every word.
“[This year is] going to go faster than she thinks,” Starkey tells ESPN. “She’s going to blink and it’s going to be senior day. She’s going to blink and she’s going to be taking off the uniform for the very last time. … One of the things that we preach around here is that today matters. Every day matters.”
6:54
The fire that drives LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson
LSU guard Flau’jae Johnson is on a mission to finish the journey her father started before he was fatally shot in May 2003.
This year, Johnson wants to improve her playmaking and shooting efficiency. Starkey sends her film of Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry to study how he moves without the ball to find open shots — in particular, how he relocates himself after handing the ball to a teammate.
“We’re trying to get our perimeter players when they feed the post to relocate so they get a touch back,” Starkey explains.
After her film session with Starkey, Johnson walked to the basketball facilities to get treatment. She tweaked her ankle in New Orleans the night before and needed to get it checked before team film. Next was practice.
It’s grueling on this day. Mulkey has her players run two sprints in 12 seconds, representing the 12 free throws they missed the night before. If someone fails to make it by the buzzer, that sprint doesn’t count. By the end of the exercise, they’ve done 15, and players are physically pulling teammates across the finish line to ensure they all make it. Next, they split into pairs to shoot free throws. Three minutes are set on the clock, and no group can miss two in a row. If they do, the clock restarts. About 20 minutes after the drill starts, they finally finish.
Johnson makes her way out of the gym and toward the weight room. She’s tired and annoyed. Her teammates are too. But as soon as they turn the corner into the weight room, the air — and their attitude — instantly becomes lighter.
In between chest presses and cable rows, they dance to GloRilla’s “Hollon.” They break into laughter before locking back in. The back and forth between letting loose and staying completely focused is a balance Johnson is always trying to strike.
“My energy controls how practice goes,” Johnson says. “My energy controls how games go. So it’s like, can you be a leader while trying to make your dreams come true of going to the WNBA?”
MULKEY CALLED JOHNSON into her office during the first week of practice to make sure she knew what kind of leader she had to be this season. This year, it was going to be her team.
“It felt damn near impossible at first,” Johnson says.
Mulkey first looked to Johnson to lead during the Tigers’ tournament run last NCAA season. She wasn’t ready.
“I don’t think Flau’jae knew how to lead,” Mulkey says.
Up until that point, Johnson had always had a veteran player above her; this time, everyone looked to her. Mulkey called Johnson into her office and told her to find her voice.
Johnson tried, but her form of feedback or criticism was harsh — asking her teammates why they would make a dumb pass, or snipping at them to get locked in.
The switch flipped for Johnson this past summer when she was with Team USA in Chile at the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup. On a roster with Olivia Miles, Madison Booker and Hannah Hidalgo, Johnson’s playing time was slashed. She averaged 11 minutes in the seven games she played and logged just three minutes in each of the semifinal and championship games.
“I got to see a different perspective,” Johnson says. “I got to see how the person on the end [of the bench], how they felt. How can I still lift them up?”
During AmeriCup, Johnson watched the Netflix documentary series “Golden,” following the U.S. men’s national team through the 2024 Olympics. She paid especially close attention to Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum’s storylines — stars for their respective NBA teams who didn’t crack Team USA’s rotation.
“It gave me some time here to understand why somebody might be feeling a certain type of way and how to help them through that,” Johnson says.
Johnson’s acceptance of a bench role with the U.S. women was a crucial moment in her maturity. In the past, she took offense to any criticism, seeing anything but good feedback as an insult.
“She definitely has responded to constructive criticism better,” Mulkey says. “She doesn’t take it personally anymore. She just takes it as a challenge.”
LSU BREEDS SUPERSTARS. Angel Reese. Fowles. Augustus. As Johnson prepares to graduate — she’s majoring in interdisciplinary studies with minors in business, communication studies and entrepreneurship — she wants to leave her mark on this program too.
She listed her best accomplishments: being a successful rapper, winning a national championship, being an All-American, being an All-SEC-caliber player, and staying at LSU for all four years.
But that is just the start of the legacy she wants to leave in Baton Rouge, as a baller, rapper, someone at the forefront of the NIL era.
“I feel like I’ve done something nobody else has done,” she says. “I really left my mark. … It’s going to be able to be something that players or, you know, just young girls and boys try to replicate for a while.”
Now, she’s looking to add to what people think of when they say the name Flau’jae Johnson. Two-time national championship. WNBA lottery pick. Scratch that — No. 1 draft pick (she’s projected at No. 5 in ESPN’s latest mock draft). She also wants a No. 1 hit. She wants her albums to go platinum.
She envisions a building with her name on it in New York City, where she can employ hundreds of people, giving them a stable job and income. Clothing lines. Shoe deals. Beauty products. She wants to do it all.
But more than any of the tangible accomplishments she wants to achieve, her biggest dream is to have an impact that she doesn’t even directly know about.
“I always tell people, success for me is like changing people’s lives that I’ll never meet,” Johnson says. “I hope that my reach is that big. I hope my impact is that big, that I really change lives and inspire people that I probably never get to see. That’s going to be my pinnacle of success.”
The aspirations are bold, just like her personality and the way she plays. For some, such success over multiple industries might sound unrealistic, but it’s the same level of organized chaos that Johnson has not only lived in, but thrived in.
“I don’t want it to go to her head,” Starkey says, a sly grin spreading across his face. “But they’re going to make a movie about her one day. I am sure about that.”
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