PREP SPRING PRACTICE: Carver, Carr leaning on former MA coach Johnson for experience

Former MA head football coach Robert Johnson is now an assistant coach for Bobby Carr and the Carver Wolverines. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

One of the first people Bobby Carr called after getting hired as the head football coach at G.W. Carver was former Montgomery Academy coach Robert Johnson. 

Johnson had stepped down as the Eagles’ head football coach and athletic director and took a job as an operations manager for Gulf Turbine Services, but continued to volunteer his time last season as an analyst for Thompson High. 

“You ask any coach in the state, they’ll tell you Robert’s one of the best high school coaches I’ve ever been around,” Carr said. “I’m having him coach up our O-line and right now that’s really a question mark for us. We’re loaded at the skill positions. We need to get that O-line in gear. We lost four starters from last year.”

The Wolverines open spring practice on Friday afternoon and Johnson will be there, part of a talented coaching staff Carr has assembled to lead Carver into its first-ever season as a Class 7A program. It’s not another step toward getting back into full-time coaching, Johnson said, just a coaching opportunity that intrigued him. 

“I like my job, I like my boss, I enjoyed working for Mark (Freeman at Thompson) and those guys,” Johnson said. “I really enjoyed that. This is just a little more convenient for me, but it’s also nice to help out an old friend and to build something. Look, Thompson’s going to be good whether I coach there or not. Here, I feel like I can make a little more of an impact.”

Despite going to work in Birmingham for a former player, Johnson never strayed too far from the coaching world where he has spent every year of his adult life on Friday nights, working at St. James, Carroll, Pike County, Tuscaloosa Academy, Lee-Scott Academy, Montgomery Academy, Thompson and now at Carver. 

“Mark (Freeman) hired me and I worked at Thompson last year,” Johnson said. “Since it’s a former football player I’m working for, he understood and I was able to meet all my obligations. Another friend was up for the Carver job and he was a finalist. He ended up pulling out his name but he had wanted me to help him. Then Bobby got it and he called me for some advice on different things. The more we talked, I went, ‘OK, Bobby, I’ll help you if you get it.’ I just kind of felt like that was God’s direction that I had two buddies that I think were in the top two of getting the job and I’m in a position where I can do it.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Bobby. We’ve coached against each other in regular season and spring training games and then we’ve coached together in (Alabama Independent School Association) all-star games. I just think it was a good fit. I think he’s put together a really good staff.”

Carr described his group as a “really, really good staff” that includes offensive coordinator Trey Dunbar, Carr’s son Tripp who will help with quarterbacks and running backs, a receivers’ coach that will join the staff later, former Ramsay defensive coordinator and now Carver coordinator Richard Bevill and a linebackers coach Bevill has secured. In addition, Carr will retain defensive backs coach Melvin Tyus and defensive line coach Dennis Barnett from the former staff. 

So far, the staff has had limited contact with the players through off-season workouts. All that changes with spring practice which opened on Friday and continues with practices on April 30, May 2, May 6, May 7, May 8, May 9, May 13 and May 14. Spring practice will conclude with the Green and Gold Game on May 16 at ASU Stadium at 6 p.m.

“I love these kids,” Johnson said. “They’ve been very responsive. They’re good kids who have worked hard. What’s funny is the offensive line I had in 2020 and 2021 at MA was bigger than the offensive line we had at Thompson and what we have at Carver. We’re not going to be small but we’re not huge, either.”

Johnson, who continues to live in Montgomery, said his work now allows him to work remotely from home two or three times a week, cutting his travel to Birmingham in half. On the field, he will revert back to his days at St. James, Carroll and Pike County when his teams ran more spread and away from the wing-T style he employed at Tuscaloosa Academy, Lee-Scott and Montgomery Academy. 

“Our goal is to get the ball to athletes where they can do something with it,” Johnson said. “That doesn’t really matter what your offense is. That’s really the ultimate goal, to put them in position to succeed.”

Carr said he “expected 140-150 out for spring ball” as interest in the program will get an estimated 65 players from the middle school ranks along with two dozen or so athletes from Sidney Lanier, which is merging with Carver. While Johnson knows his offensive line will be one of the focal points in 2024, he also is aware his team is loaded with talent at running back.  

“That’s going to make the line coach’s job a little easier,” he noted, “because all we’ve got to do is get in people’s way.”