Basketball camp honors memory of Morgan City grad, Tulane player

The inaugural Keisha Johnson-Brown Girls’ Basketball Camp will be held June 11 at the Morgan City High School gym.
Leading the camp will be Tulane Men’s Basketball Coach Kevin Johnson.
The camp is named after the late Keisha Johnson-Brown who was a graduate of MCHS and Tulane University in New Orleans.
The former Green Wave women’s basket-ball standout, Johnson-Brown died in April 2014 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. She was 41 years old.
The Morgan City native was a four-year letter-winner at Tulane from 1990-94. During her time at Tulane she earned Metro Conference All-Rookie Team honors as a fresh-man, claimed second-team All-Metro honors as a sophomore and was tabbed first-team all-conference as a senior. At the conclusion of her career, she became the first player in program history to surpass both the 1,000-point and 1,000-rebound plateaus with totals of 1,823 points and 1,048 boards.
Her rebound total, 9.4 rebounds-per-game average and 465 offensive boards remain Tulane records. She also set Green Wave marks with a .609 field goal percentage as well as 3,418 minutes played and 30.5 minutes per game.
Johnson-Brown also finished her career second in Tulane history with 729 field goals, 583 defensive rebounds and 222 steals, third in points scored, 365 free throws and 2.0 steals per game, and fourth with 16.3 points per game.
Those accomplishments have been since surpassed by others.
Following her collegiate career, she played professionally in Finland for Tamperen-Pyrinto from 1994-96 when she averaged 23 points and 15 rebounds per game and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. She was elected into the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.
Johnson-Brown’s first coaching position was with the Southern Belles Basketball Club in New Orleans from 1997-2000 where she coached the squad to the 2000 state championship. From there, she moved to Michigan where she became the junior varsity coach for the Sacred Heart Academy girls’ program in 2001 while also coaching the AAU Central Basketball Club in Mt. Pleasant.
In 2002-03, she coached the junior varsity boys at Sacred Heart before becoming head coach in 2003. Johnson-Brown coached Sacred Heart Academy boys’ basketball from 2003-09 where she put together a 114-30 record. She led the Irish to five straight conference titles, four district championships, three regional crowns and a runner-up showing in Class D in 2006. In addition, she also served as a principal and athletic director during her tenure at the school.
Johnson-Brown was later named head coach at Alma (Michigan) College’s women’s basketball team on July 1, 2009, and spent the next five years at the helm of the Scots’ program.
After being diagnosed with cancer in June 2007, she created the Angel Wings Fund. The fund set up college scholarships for children who have lost a parent to cancer. She also served as a motivational speaker to help raise cancer awareness to youth audiences.
Morgan City native Kevin Johnson was hired as assistant coach for Tulane men’s basketball in April 2019.
Johnson spent the previous nine seasons as an assistant coach at Louisiana-Lafayette helping the program to 174 wins including a school record 27 victories in 2017-18. ULL reached the post-season five times including a bid to the 2014 NCAA Tournament, as well as a 2018 Sun Belt regular season title and NIT appearance. The Ragin’ Cajuns won at least 21 games in four of his final six seasons in Lafayette, as the pro-gram averaged 22 wins per year during that span.
Johnson recruited, signed and developed nine different players who combined for 17 all-conference selections and four defensive player of the year winners at UL Lafayette, including four-time All-Sun Belt Conference honoree Shawn Long, also a Morgan City High alum.
Prior to his time at ULL, Johnson spent three seasons at Nicholls State as the Colonels posted a 20-11 record and a 14-2 mark in the Southland Conference in just his second season in 2008-09.
Before his tenure in Thibodaux, Johnson served as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech for two years, helping the Bulldogs to a 20-13 mark and an 11-5 conference ledger during the 2005-06 campaign and an appearance in the NIT.
Johnson spent eight seasons at Centenary College from 1997-2005, the first two as an assis-tant and the next six as head coach. At the helm of the program, Johnson compiled a 50-17 record at home, and in 2003-04, guided the Gents to a perfect 13-0 mark in the Gold Dome and a second-place finish in the Mid-Continent Conference.
Prior to his time in Shreveport, Johnson spent one season as an assistant at his alma mater, UT-Pan Ameri-can, in 1996-97. His coaching career began in a one-year stint as an assistant coach at Northwestern State in 1989-90 where he coached current South-ern University director of athletics Roman Banks.
As a student-athlete at UTPA (now UT Rio Grande Valley), Johnson compiled 1,156 career points, which ranks 15th all-time in the Broncos’ record books. Johnson ranks fifth in school history in free throw percentage (.776), and is seventh in free throw attempts (389) and free throws made (302).
Following his playing career at UTPA, Johnson headed overseas to England where he played for the Leicester Riders. He spent one season with the Riders before accepting an assistant coaching spot at Northwestern State in 1989.
In 1990, Johnson re-turned to England to become the player/head coach for the Oldham Celtics. In 1992, he led the Celtics to a league championship with a 25-1 record. Johnson aver-aged 33.0 points per game in Oldham’s championship run and was nominated for coach of the year.
In 1993, Johnson re-turned to the states to become an assistant coach at Bryan High School in Bryan, Texas and rejoined the college ranks in 1996 as an assistant at UTPA.
Johnson prepped at Morgan City High School where he was an all-district selection for the Tigers.
Funds raised through the camp will benefit the MCHS girls’ basketball program.
Registration is $25. The camp is open to girls ages 8-18 and will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Registration forms will appear periodically in the Morgan City Review. Completed forms and payment may be dropped off at the MCHS office.
For more information or to get a registration form email dsingle-ton@stmaryk12.net or call Coach Duriel Singleton, 985-255-7941 or Coach Joe Jones, 985-759-3223.
Biographical and statistical information on Johnson-Brown and Johnson was obtained from tulanegreen-wave.com.

Keisha Johnson-Brown

Kevin Johnson