Son of Huron grad Gus Johnson will play Division I baseball at Indiana

MASON, Ohio — Sandusky Bay Conference fans of a certain age remember when Gus Johnson was a standout athlete for Huron High School, earning All-Ohio recognition in both football and basketball. Now it's Max Johnson's turn to shine. The younger Johnson, a senior at Mason High School north of Cincinnati, accepted an athletic scholarship to play baseball for the Indiana University when he recently signed his national letter of intent. He had verbally committed to the Bloomington program as a sophomore. "The (Indiana coaches) saw me through my summer and fall baseball and we actually played three games at Indiana one weekend," Max Johnson said. "I started speaking with the coaching staff and from there, they offered me." The 6-foot-1, 160-pound shortstop is a switch-hitter who has been a starter for the Comets since his freshman year. Like all other high school spring athletes, he lost his junior season to COVID-19. "That was devastating," he said. "I felt our team had a really good chance to make a run in the tournament. We had seven or eight Division I guys on the team, so it was going to be really fun to play. Unfortunately, we didn't get that chance." Max Johnson was heavily recruited by all Division I schools in the state, including Ohio State, Kent State, Cincinnati, Xavier and Ohio University, his parents' alma mater. In addition, he received offers from Notre Dame and Stetson in Florida, plus had caught the attention of most Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference baseball programs. "I was originally going to commit to Ohio State, but I went to Indiana and immediately fell in love with it. It felt like home," Max Johnson said. "I immediately developed a good relationship with the coaching staff. I just felt that Indiana was going to be the place where I could develop the best as a person and as a player." The Johnsons made it to the Cincinnati area following Gus' graduation from OU, where he played basketball following his 1992 graduation from Huron. Gus is currently the director of sales and marketing for Smith-Nephew, a sports medical device firm. "My first job out of college brought me to Cincinnati," Gus said. "I met my wife here, who actually was a cheerleader at OU, although we never dated. We ran into each other here and the next thing we know, we're married and three kids later we're living in Mason." Max is also a shooting guard on the Mason varsity basketball team. "I just kind of fell in love with baseball from a young age," he said. "My dad always told me that I could do whatever and that he wouldn't push me into basketball or football. He just said to do whatever I wanted to do, go after it and go achieve your dreams."