Vice President
Chuck Johnson
vicepresident@wabjdc.org
Before bringing his uniquely personable writing style and informative substance to the boxing beat, Johnson covered major league baseball for 18 years with the nation's newspaper, highlighted by frequent exclusive interviews with some of the game's most controversial and least accessible stars, including Barry Bonds, Albert Belle and Jose Canseco. He is a Hall of Fame-voting member of both the Baseball Writers' Association of America and the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Prior to joining USA TODAY in February 1988, he was a sports writer and columnist for nearly 13 years at the Flint (Mich.) Journal where he was the Detroit Pistons and NBA beat writer for Booth Newspapers. He also covered boxing for Booth's eight-paper chain of Michigan dailies, reporting on the Thomas Hearns-Sugar Ray Leonard welterweight showdown in 1981 among other major fights during Detroit's renaissance as a boxing hotbed in the 80s.
Johnson is the founding president of the former Mid-Michigan Association of Black Journalists and is a long-time active member of the National Association of Black Journalists. His body of work earned him recognition as the 2000 Sports Journalist of the Year by the NABJ Sports Task Force, of which he has served multiple terms on the board as parliamentarian and sergeant at arms. He is in his first term as vice president of NABJ's Washington chapter.
Johnson made his movie debut in 2006, portraying himself as a boxing writer in Rocky Balboa. In 2008, he was inducted into the State News Alumni Association Hall of Fame in honor of his illustrious career since writing four years as a staffer for Michigan State University's student newspaper. He lives in Temple Hills, Md. and is the father of two children, daughter Janay, 19, and son Julius, 15.
