{"id":8296,"date":"2015-11-02T04:30:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T10:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/?p=8296"},"modified":"2015-10-29T22:17:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T03:17:18","slug":"johnson-celebrates-20th-anniversary-as-nsr-area-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/johnson-celebrates-20th-anniversary-as-nsr-area-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson celebrates 20th anniversary as NSR area director"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dave<\/a>
Dave Johnson became area director of NSR’s Daytona-to-Orlando territory in 1996.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dave Johnson may not be among the flashiest area directors with National Scouting Report, but he is one of its most dedicated. When the calendar flips to 2016, Johnson will be celebrating his 20th anniversary with NSR in Daytona Beach, Fla.<\/p>\n

You will never meet a nicer guy.\u00a0 His kind demeanor and approach have\u00a0formed the foundation for his success.\u00a0 Always within reach of his prospects and families, Johnson, 63, has been guiding\u00a0high school student-athletes through the college recruiting process longer than\u00a0most scouting organizations have existed.<\/p>\n

Hailing from the small town of Van Wert, Ohio, tucked in the Northwest corner of the state, Johnson was one of the area’s top high school shortstops.\u00a0 Upon graduating from Van Wert High, he enrolled in Florida Southern College in Lakeland.\u00a0\u00a0A backup shortstop for the talented Moccasins, Johnson was a member of the\u00a0baseball squad\u00a0which won\u00a0the NCAA’s first Division II national title in 1971.\u00a0 Playing ahead of Johnson was Greg Pryor, who was\u00a0the first Florida Southern player to make it to the\u00a0major leagues.<\/p>\n

Johnson’s\u00a0college baseball career was cut short by\u00a0bursitis in his\u00a0throwing shoulder.\u00a0 He continued on as a student, earning a\u00a0B.S. degree in Accounting in 1974.<\/p>\n

A few years later, Johnson went to work for a company selling point-of-sale systems\u00a0to restaurants.\u00a0 But after 18 years on the road, he was bored with the work and eager to enter another field.\u00a0\u00a0In a matter of days,\u00a0a newspaper ad for\u00a0NSR college scouts in the Daytona Beach newspaper caught his eye.<\/p>\n

While watching an American Legion baseball tournament, Johnson\u00a0ran into one of his former college coaches.\u00a0 He asked the coach if he had heard of NSR.\u00a0 The coach said he had and thought the job was worth pursuing.<\/p>\n

\"Johnson<\/a>
Johnson traveled to Coker College to see former NSR propect Katie Szupelo’s final college game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next day, Johnson called Florida state director Sam Janowiz in Miami.\u00a0 So intrigued was Johnson following their conversation that the next day he flew to Miami to\u00a0meet\u00a0Janowiz.\u00a0\u00a0After only three hours, Johnson walked away\u00a0from the interview as the new area director\u00a0overseeing\u00a0Daytona Beach\u00a0to Orlando.<\/p>\n

“I was sold on the [NSR] system,” Johnson recalled.\u00a0 “I would have given anything to get some\u00a0exposure coming out of my small-town high school in Ohio. I just knew that if I chose the right prospects and presented how NSR could connect them to college coaches that I could be very successful.”<\/p>\n

During his NSR career, Johnson has\u00a0covered\u00a0nearly every NCAA sport and has helped place more than 300 prospects with colleges.\u00a0 Highly regarded as one of the wisest go-to scouts in NSR, Johnson can be counted on to offer sage advice to any inexperienced or struggling scout.<\/p>\n

“One of the many things I enjoy about NSR is the relationship we have with other scouts and the various ways we can communicate with one another,”\u00a0Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson has seen NSR go through a lot of changes in his 19-plus years.\u00a0 When he started, for instance, high tech\u00a0wasn’t something readily associated with recruiting services.<\/p>\n

“NSR has changed dramatically since I started,” Johnson said. “We did everything by U.S. mail.\u00a0\u00a0E-mail had not taken off yet and the Internet was only on dial-up with blazing fast\u00a02,400-baud modems.\u00a0 Today, that would be really<\/em> slow.\u00a0 We didn’t have cell phones, but some of us did have what was called bag phones.\u00a0 And we\u00a0carried VCR tapes in our bags to use for in-home presentations, that is, if<\/em> families had a VCR player.”<\/p>\n

Johnson believes all the new scouting technology is great for his NSR prospects, but he still relies on his proven methods.<\/p>\n

“Scouting and evaluating talent is the heartbeat of National Scouting Report,” Johnson said. “The athletes see us at their events.\u00a0 The parents see us.\u00a0 And the coaches see that we only talk to athletes\u00a0that are legitimate college prospects.\u00a0 An athlete can either play at the next level or he can’t.\u00a0 And you can’t determine that while sitting at a computer or over the telephone.\u00a0 Seeing an athlete perform in person, watching his or her competitiveness and how he or she gets along with coaches and teammates\u00a0are key to properly assessing a prospect.<\/p>\n

\"Johnson<\/a>
Johnson chats with former NSR prospect Jill Semento, head softball coach at St. John’s River State College in Florida.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I’m the kind of guy who tells athletes and their\u00a0parents exactly where they stand from my point of view.\u00a0 Even if I run into an athlete who thinks he or she can play at a higher level, I talk as honestly as I can about where they fit.\u00a0 When a prospect realizes that it’s the coaches who decide where she belongs and not her, her parents or me, then reality starts to sink in.\u00a0 For instance, if we have promoted her exclusively\u00a0to D-I schools at her request and none have responded, that’s a clear sign she belongs in a lower division.\u00a0 It’s a hard pill to swallow, but time is too precious in recruiting for them to waste it hoping a D-I program will suddenly knock on her door.”<\/p>\n

Johnson should know. He has placed prospects at every level of college athletics.<\/p>\n

Johnson has genuine\u00a0affection for his former prospects.\u00a0 Last spring he and his wife drove nearly six hours and 400 miles to watch a former softball prospect, Katie Szupelo, who played four years for Coker College in Hartsville, S.C., step on the field for her final game.<\/p>\n

Reminiscing about the trip, Johnson recalled: “Katie’s last at-bat was a single.\u00a0 Then she stole second, third and, for the first time ever, stole home to put\u00a0her team\u00a0in the lead.\u00a0 I cried like she was my own kid.\u00a0 I had worked with her\u00a0giving pitching lessons and hitting since she was a freshman in high school.”<\/p>\n

Johnson said he is very proud of his former prospects. “I have had several college coaches, a couple of doctors, even had my first kid of a former NSR client go thru the [NSR] program last year,” Johnson boasted.<\/p>\n

This type of dedication, service and attachment to his prospects\u00a0have\u00a0paid dividends for him.\u00a0\u00a0Many of the NSR prospects with whom Johnson works come from referrals.<\/p>\n

“To me, this isn’t work,” he said. “It is a joy to be a part of so many young people’s lives\u00a0and to watch them grow and become productive citizens.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Johnson may not be among the flashiest area directors with National Scouting Report, but he is one of its most dedicated. When the calendar flips to 2016, Johnson will be celebrating his 20th anniversary with NSR in Daytona Beach, Fla. You will never meet a nicer guy.\u00a0 His kind demeanor and approach have\u00a0formed the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[301,31,36,307,167,308,306,305,222,309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8296"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8316,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8296\/revisions\/8316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}