JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Hard work doesn’t always get immediate recognition, but for one local athlete, it showed up unexpectedly in his backyard.
Isaiah Johnson, a freshman football player at Christ’s Church Academy in Mandarin, was in the middle of his daily routine, consisting of lineman drills in his backyard.
But this day wasn’t like the others. This time, Johnson had a few guests.
“I didn’t see him walking up,” Johnson recalls. “I just saw a big group of people [and] I didn’t pay attention to, like, who they were, anything.”
Once he was done with his rep, he turned around to someone asking him, “What’s up?”
He then realized he was sharing his backyard with one of the newest, and already most popular, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars: Travis Hunter.
“It blew me away,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s mother, Chanel, said she was sitting on the couch playing with her kids when she heard Johnson’s jubilant screams from outside.
“First of all, I thought something was wrong,” she recounted. “I didn’t realize he said Travis Hunter, but the name didn’t register at the moment, because I’m thinking something’s wrong with him...So I just went to the door and saw it was Travis Hunter, and just was like, ‘Okay, calm down.’”
The surreal moment turned even more unforgettable when Hunter signed the football that Johnson trains with.
Johnson said the football will no longer be used for drills and is heading straight for the display case, and described the feeling of seeing the Jags new superstar as “crazy.”
“I was overly shocked that he just appeared,” he said.
From backyard reps to a once-in-a-lifetime visit, Hunter’s most recent viral moment has given Johnson and his family memories that will last forever.
