Noel Johnson Never Lost. . . And Cancer DID NOT Win

Noel Johnson played basketball.

Noel Johnson coached basketball.

Basketball was an infinitesimally small part of what made Noel special.

I first saw Noel play while she was in high school. I’d called a play-off game in Shallowater, got done early and went to check-out the latest, greatest incoming Texas Tech Women’s Basketball recruit. That’s right. This was before the Lady Raiders were known as the Lady Raiders. We’ll get to that later. . .

Seeing Noel play, even then, you could see she was different. And that’s saying a lot for someone starring for Nazareth. You got to do a little something and have a little something to standout there. She did.

I had no idea sitting in the gym that night I was beginning a 30 year friendship that in a way would be the backdrop and harbinger for so many things I would enjoy and have in my life.

I thought I was watching basketball. 🙂

I was a senior when Noel was a freshman. I was calling Texas Tech women’s basketball games for KJAK. All of them. The first time every game had been broadcast on commercial radio. That year Texas Tech would win their first SWC championship. They’d advance to to the Sweet 16 losing to Stanford in Seattle. We had a blast.

It was then I began to see how Noel was special. She was a force on the court, even as a freshman. She could see things that most coaches couldn’t. Sometimes I wonder if she saw things even Coach Marsha Sharp couldn’t see from the sidelines. She communicated and she helped congeal a group of players that year who would form the nucleus of a National Championship team a year later.

Did I mention she was good?

Noel made it look easy. Shooting, Driving. Out-rebounding taller players. Passing. Leading. Yes. Leading. She was always leading.

We’ll get back to that later.

Fast forward to April of 2019 and I get a text from a fellow Lady Raider that Noel is sick. Cancer. Stage 4. Not good.

My first response was that it was unfair. Not unfair to Noel but unfair to cancer. Cancer picked on the wrong competitor. Cancer deserved pity.

I knew that Noel would battle cancer the same way she attacked basketball and life. Head on. Head up. No wasted motion. And she did. She did for 14 months. She beat cancer.

Noel died Tuesday June 9th, 2020.

She beat the crap out of cancer. She showed a path every day for her players, friends, family and more on how to do it. Noel led every step of the way, showing how you never lose when you compete. Sometimes, you just run out of time. . . but you don’t lose.

Meanwhile, back in 1993, the now Lady Raiders ( I’ll explain in a bit ) are on the way to a National Championship season. Jeannine McHaney is the Senior Women’s Administrator for Texas Tech. A champion not just for women’s sports but for competitors of all types. Her favorite? Noel Johnson.

That spring Jeannine is in the midst of her own battle, one against breast cancer. Tougher than two-dollar shoes, McHaney is fighting. And while she fights, she is there each step of the way for the the Lady Raiders.

Of course for McHaney, it would have been the Red Raiders, Texas Tech women’s basketball style. McHaney was adamant that Red Raiders was a gender neutral nickname. They were equal. It was one of the few times Coach Sharp and McHaney clashed I think. but Coach Sharp convinced Jeannine that Lady Raiders created a separate and special identity.

And it did.

So now, McHaney is watching her Lady Raiders roll to a championship, each game encouraging and giving them fight and strength while drawing strength from them. No one embodied that more than Noel. They had a special bond that year. They would “salute” each other before and after wins. Noel understood all that McHaney had done to get Texas Tech in the position to be great and Noel repaid her with supreme effort. And a National Title.

McHaney would pass away in 1994.

When McHaney was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators it would be Noel whom they quoted in the press release.

“Any success in the past or future of women’s athletics at Texas Tech is a result of Jeannine McHaney,” former Lady Raider basketball player Noel Johnson said. “Her courage and leadership will forever be embedded in Texas Tech athletics.”

Fast forward to April 2019 and it doesn’t surprise me that it was McHaney that provided Noel with the game-plan to fight cancer, lead her program and show the rest of us how to give more than you get. . . . In a way, Noel had trained her entire life to show us all in her toughest hours just how tough she could be and how tough we can be.

Noel’s greatest wins were not on the court.

They were off the court in the countless folks she impacted, made better and showed them how much they had to give, more than they know, that she could show by her own doing by example.

But if we let it end there, that wouldn’t be Noel. That would just be a part.

For me, Noel will always be so much more than basketball.

She was funny. A wicked sense of humor. She was competitive, but never made you feel bad when she beat you at cards, quarters, HORSE, or anything else ( OK, that may not be quite true 🙂 )

Basketball was such a small part of who she was, but she was smart enough to use the game to allow her to impart her greatest qualities on so many young people ( and old) over the years.

Noel ” coached” from the day she arrived at Texas Tech to earlier this Tuesday in June when she went home, pain-free, glorified!

I had no idea when we first started going down this road of life together in the early 90s how much she was teaching me.

So many folks will remember Noel as a great Lady Raider, a National Champion, a winning coach. . .

I’ll remember Noel as the impish prankster jumping out from behind a dumpster trying to scare us as we walked back as a team to the hotel following a night out. I’ll remember Noel saluting Jeannine. I’ll remember Noel never quitting. No matter the score.

The score never mattered to Noel.

That’s why she never lost.

Godspeed Noel.

Love,

Ryan