Katie Johnson

I've been in athletics and education for 11 years now. I played college volleyball in college and graduated with a journalism degree, specifically broadcast journalism. After graduation, I did PR in Atlanta for 2 years and coached volleyball on the side for a big public school north of the city. When they were building a new public school in the same area, the new athletic director told me that if I got my teaching certificate, he wanted me to start the volleyball program at that school. That's what got me into education. I taught English there for 3 years while coaching. I was deciding whether to make a switch and try to get into college sports when I got offered a position at Agnes Scott College to be their women's head volleyball coach. But at the same time, I got a call from Lovett, and their athletic director said, 'Hey, I heard about you, give me a try, I promise that you will like it here much more than college.' I told him I'd give it a try for two years, and I did fall in love with it. He got me into the assistant AD role, and I just kind of ran from there and found my passion in that. I was the Assistant Athletic Director at Lovett in Atlanta for 4 years, then became Director of Athletics at a school in Pittsburgh, and now I'm in my second year as Director of Athletics here in Chicago. My dad was an athletic director and has been a college basketball coach for almost 30 years now, so I knew I wanted to do something around sports. Every day is different in this role, which is part of why I love it. I do leadership workshops, work with our student-athlete advisory board that I created, handle scheduling, buses, facilities, and parent calls about playing time and expectations. I really like working with high schoolers because there's a lot of growth that happens in those four years, and it's fun to work with them and see them grow.