NC State legend Vaughan Johnson passes away at age 57
Former NC State linebacker legend Vaughan Johnson passed away Thursday night at age 57.
Johnson had recently been battling kidney and lung issues.
He was a standout for the Wolfpack from 1980-83 and became the No. 15 overall pick in the 1984 NFL supplemental draft by the New Orleans Saints. His 167 tackles in 1982 for the Wolfpack is tied for fourth all-time for a single season. Johnson ranks at NC State with 384 career tackles. He also had 12 tackles for loss and seven sacks.
Johnson was named first-team All-American by The Sporting News and second-team by the Associated Press in 1983, his senior year. He had 144 tackles, four tackles for loss and three sacks that season.
The inside linebacker in the Saints 3-4 defense, he formed one of the greatest linebacker quartets of all-time with inside linebacker Sam Mills and outside linebackers Rickey Jackson and Patrick Swilling. Johnson, who started his pro career with the USFL’s Jacksonville Bulls from 1984-85, was a four-time pro bowl selection, second-team all-pro in 1989 and was inducted into the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame.
The former Morehead City (N.C.) West Carteret High standout finished his NFL career with 669 tackles, 12 sacks, four interceptions and 11 forced fumbles. His hitting ability was well known at NC State, where teammates who were running backs always knew when Johnson was lurking.
The following is a story that appeared in a recent Wolfpacker magazine, written by Tim Peeler:
Vaughan Johnson Is One Of NC State's Great Linebackers
By Tim Peeler
Vaughan Johnson was among the most intimidating and scariest linebackers to ever suit up in a uniform, whether it was at NC State, the USFL’s Jacksonville Bulls or the NFL’s New Orleans Saints.
You can toss around the best linebackers in Wolfpack history — Chuck Amato, Bill Cowher, Kyle Westcoe, Robert Abraham, Damien Covington, Levar Fisher, Dantonio Burnette, Oliver Hoyte, Pat Thomas, Stephen Tulloch, Audie Cole and Nate Irving — and you won’t find anyone more physical than Johnson, who starred for the Wolfpack defense in the early 1980s.
Like similar-era basketball star Lorenzo Charles, Johnson had muscles in his clean-shaven head was capable of knocking over a running back with the flex of an eyebrow.
He famously said of the players he tackled: “When I hit them, I like to see their eyes glaze over and roll back.”
He had a quick step, a fierce competitiveness and a nose for the football that made him adaptable for whatever system he happened to play in.
And Johnson played in a lot during his college (1980-83) and professional (1984-93) careers. He was recruited by the late Bo Rein from West Carteret High School in Morehead City, N.C., as a highly touted running back/linebacker, but arrived at the same time as the late Rein’s replacement, Monte Kiffin, in 1980. He showed up as a 6-2, 180-pound freshman and mostly played on special teams.
He was a top reserve as sophomore, but by his junior year he had put on nearly 50 pounds of muscle. At 6-3 and 230 pounds, he was a two-year starter for defensive coordinators Pete Carroll (under Kiffin) and Tom Batta (under head coach Tom Reed).
He played for almost as many position coaches and coordinators as longtime NFL quarterback Philip Rivers had during his collegiate career, but he never saw that as a drawback.
“I consider it a blessing to have played for all those coaches,” Johnson said. “I had to deal with different personalities and different coaching styles. I learned a little from everyone of them, and they all prepared me for professional football, where you have to change and adapt and prepare differently every season, every week.”
It didn’t hurt that Johnson was part of a decorated linebacking tandem with Andy Hendel, a lacrosse recruit from Rochester, N.Y., who walked onto the football team and became a standout performer.
Known at NC State as “The Blitz Brothers,” Johnson and Hendel combined for 328 tackles as juniors in 1982. Kiffin — in his finest hyperbolic fashion — called them “the best two linebackers in the world.”
As a senior, in the first of Reed’s three 3-8 seasons, Johnson still earned recognition as an All-American — named first-team by Sporting News and second-team by the Associated Press. His 384 career-tackle total still ranks sixth on NC State’s all-time list.
Johnson and Hendel also spent two years together in Jacksonville, Fla., playing for the city’s United States Football League franchise, the Bulls. However, the league ceased operation in 1985 and Johnson had the good fortune to land with the New Orleans Saints, who had got his NFL rights by taking him in a 1984 supplemental draft of USFL players.
In 1987 — Johnson’s first season as an NFL starter — the Saints recorded the first winning record and earned the first playoff berth in franchise history. The Saints never had a losing record again with Johnson on the team and made three more trips to the postseason.
Johnson was the middle anchor of the Saints’ Dome Patrol, a collection of four linebackers that included the late Sam Mills, Pat Swilling and NFL Hall of Famer Rickey Jackson that is one of the best linebacking squads in NFL history.
Johnson was definitely the most physical, and sometimes the most overlooked, in that well-decorated group. However, he still earned five All-Pro honors — the most of any Wolfpack product to play in the NFL — and four Pro Bowl selections.
In 1992, the Dome Patrol became the only set of teammates in Pro Bowl history to start at linebacker in the annual all-star game, something that had not happened before and has not happened since.
In his career, which ended following a four-game stint with Philadelphia in 1994, Johnson collected 669 tackles, 12 sacks and four interceptions.
Former Saints head coach Jim Mora said in comparing Johnson to the rest of the Dome Patrol, “Vaughan was just as good as the other three. Physically, he might have been as gifted as any of them.
“He was big. He was strong. He was fast. He was tough. He was good against the run, good against the pass. He was a big reason for the success of our defensive team during the years he played.”
Already inducted into the Saints Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2011, this July Johnson became the final member of the Dome Squad to be inducted into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
“Vaughan Johnson was just a great linebacker, in college and in the pros,” said Wolfpack Club executive director Bobby Purcell, who was an assistant coach under Kiffin and Reed. “He was a fierce hitter, who was big and fast. He was a great team leader who had everyone’s respect.
“He was the total package, including being a quality person off the field.”
Johnson’s path to greatness started on the shores of the North Carolina coast and the fields of Carteret County. He was a stalwart for coach Robbie Barrow’s West Carteret High School teams that went 17-3 in Johnson’s final two seasons.
He was recruited by dozens of schools, but decided early in the process that the wanted to stay in North Carolina so his family could see him play.
Rein’s staff was the first to offer a scholarship, but Johnson took visits to East Carolina and North Carolina, and decided neither of them felt like home.
He’s been a devoted Wolfpacker ever since.
“NC State was the first team to offer me a full scholarship, and by the end everybody in the country was throwing scholarship offers at me,” Johnson recalled. “I just felt more comfortable with the other players, coaches and administrators than I did at any other school.
“Even when Coach Rein left for LSU, I knew I still wanted to go there. My commitment was to the school, and it is something that I am still committed to all these years later.”
Johnson attends two or three games a year and always tries to make an appearance when the Wolfpack Club Caravan travels to the beach.
After he retired from the NFL in 1993, Johnson returned to his hometown of Morehead City, as he did every offseason, to help his father’s marine construction business, building docks, seawalls and bridges.
When the elder Johnson retired, the younger Johnson started a concrete construction business, pouring foundations, driveways, sidewalks and other similar structures.
“I loved coming back to work with my father during college breaks and during the offseason,” he said. “I love working with my hands and building things, and I have loved working for myself.
“I’ve been fortunate to be busy most of the time, maybe a little too busy at times.”
Mostly, however, the 55-year-old is happy he has the ability to do the work he loves after playing the sport that made him a star.
“God blessed me,” Johnson said. “I was fortunate to play as long as I did and get out of the sport in good health. I was able to make a smooth transition and return home to do what I always wanted to do.”
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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