Former KU Jayhawks basketball player, athletic director Monte Johnson dies at age 84
Monte Johnson, a teammate of former Kansas basketball Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain on the Jayhawks’ 1956-57 NCAA runner-up squad who served as athletic director at his alma mater from 1982-87, died Tuesday in Lawrence.
Johnson hired Larry Brown as the Jayhawks’ basketball coach, and Mike Gottfried and, later, Bob Valesente as KU football coaches, during his stint as athletic director.
He grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from KU with a bachelor’s degree in business in 1959 and a master’s in business administration in 1967.
In 1997, the Johnson family donated $100,000 to create a scholarship for KU basketball walk-ons. In 2010, Johnson was presented the Fred Ellsworth Medallion by the KU Alumni Association. Established in 1975, the Ellsworth Medallion honors individuals who have provided “unique and significant service to the university.”
He belonged to the Chancellors Club for KU Endowment and served on the KU Alumni Association’s national board of directors from 1971-74.
“Monte Johnson was a true Jayhawk through and through, and he will be greatly missed,” said KU athletic director Travis Goff. “Every decision he made as the athletics director was to better the University of Kansas athletics department and the student-athlete experience. He certainly did that through facilities improvements, the construction of Hoglund Ballpark (baseball) and the hiring of Larry Brown who won the first national championship for Kansas basketball in over three decades.
“After leaving KU, Monte, along with his family, continued to provide opportunities for student-athletes by establishing a scholarship to benefit walk-ons who earned an athletic scholarship. As a former KU men’s basketball walk-on himself in the 1950s, Monte’s love for the university and the desire to better the lives of others leaves a lasting legacy that will forever be engrained at KU.”
Johnson worked as a senior vice president for the Fourth National Bank in Wichita and with former KU teammate Bob Billings in Alvamar Inc., a Lawrence investment and land development company. In 1988, he helped to raise the $2.5 million needed to build a new house for the Phi Delta Theta chapter at KU.
He also worked as a consultant for many years in Lawrence.
Johnson, who played on the KU team that fell to North Carolina 54-53 in triple-overtime in the 1957 NCAA title game, in 1997 established a scholarship with his wife Kay, daughter Jackie and son Jeff for KU men’s and women’s walk-on basketball players who had no remaining athletic eligibility but warranted a scholarship to complete a degree program.
Jeff Johnson played for the Jayhawks from 1984-86.
“The opportunity to walk on and earn a basketball scholarship at KU in 1955 was one of the most important events in shaping my life,” Monte Johnson said at the time the scholarship was announced. “Without that opportunity, I could not have stayed in college and earned two degrees, which opened up so many opportunities to me and my family since then.
“Our son, Jeff, had the same walk-on opportunity in 1984 to ‘86 and similarly benefited from the experience; add to that the fact that Roy Williams was a walk-on at North Carolina. Our family wanted to perpetuate that walk-on scholarship opportunity for the future.”
Monte Johnson played high school basketball at Wyandotte High School. He became a KU recruit after scoring 27 points for Wyandotte in a game against Shawnee Mission North. At the time, according to the Lawrence Journal-World, a relative of Phog Allen’s was in the stands and told Allen about Johnson.
KU assistant Dick Harp contacted Johnson to set up an in-home visit.
“That was a little uncomfortable for me,” Johnson told the Journal-World in 2013. “We were so poor I thought they maybe they were coming to the house to figure out how to buy us some food.”
Johnson received an academic scholarship, became a starter on the freshman team with Chamberlain and later became a part-time starter for KU’s varsity as an upperclassman.
The Johnsons, longtime KU supporters, have contributed frequently to many different areas of the university, including the Williams Fund, the School of Business, the Spencer Museum of Art and the KU Band. During Campaign Kansas, the family donated $50,000 for an athletics expansion project and the Williams Fund.
He and his wife, Kay Rathbone Johnson, also a KU graduate, are life members of the KU Alumni Association. The Johnsons have two children, Jackie and Jeff, who are both KU graduates.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 5:39 PM.
