Know the Name: Corpus Christi's top prospect Johnny Dickson ready to step up when mom's on deployment

Courtesy of Johnny Dickson

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Candace Dickson is bracing for the flood of tears that will inevitably stream down her face this December.

It’s then that the 13-year veteran of the U.S. Navy will embark on her fifth deployment, an 18-month tour that will keep her away from her adoring children, Johnny and Cameran Dickson.

“It’s been me, Johnny and Cameran for the last eight years,” she said. “So a big part of my heart will be staying in Texas while I’m overseas. I’m gonna cry like a baby for the first month until I get acclimated to a schedule. It’s going to be hard.”

An increase in parental responsibilities will fall on the broad shoulders of 16-year-old Johnny to look after his 13-year-old brother while the two stay with family friends in Corpus Christi.

It’s nothing that the 6-foot-3, 280-pound junior-to-be at Flour Bluff High School can’t handle though. He’s been the man of the Dickson household ever since his parents got a divorce and the three of them moved from Virginia Beach, Virginia to South Texas during his eighth grade year.

“I’m just going to have to watch my brother, which I’ve pretty much been doing my whole life anyway,” Johnny said.

He knows what’s expected of him. If he wants to continue to make a name for himself on the football field, he has to continue to prioritize academics first; mom’s orders.

“Johnny has to make sure he picks his brother up from practice, pick him up from school, make sure grades are still good; they’ll still be on my strict routine of doing homework as soon as you get home from practice,” his mother said. “They still know that if they get a C they have to sit out for six weeks until they get a B at the next progress report or if their grade goes back up. School to me is the most important.”

It’s extremely important to Johnny, too, which takes some of the stress out of the situation. He has a lot to play for as perhaps the biggest recruit in the Corpus Christi region for the Class of 2022.

247Sports has Dickson listed as the No. 49 player in the state for his class and the No. 10 guard in the country. There isn’t another recruit from the area ranked in the top 120.

“Every time I play I think about my mom and my family, my family and teammates,” he said. “When my mom and dad got a divorce, the only thing that took my mind off of it was football; it was my escape route. I see every day how hard my mom works for me and my brother. Right now, my dad lives in Alabama; he’s still in the picture. But my mom has been there.”

He already boasts offers from Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M.

Flour Bluff head coach Chris Steinbruck fondly remembers the day that the buzz around his promising prospect started to register across the region.

“When we got back from quarantine on June 8, it happened to be raining that day and all the linemen took their shirts off to do drills. I told my offensive coordinator that Johnny looks like he got bigger during quarantine,” Steinbruck said. “What happened was, everything was shut down for about eight weeks, but [Johnny’s family] live on base, so he had access to the weight room facility on the base and continued to lift every single day.”

Steinbruck snapped some photos of Johnny and sent them to a couple of coaches who had long recruited Flour Bluff.

“And, all of a sudden, the phone started blowing up,” he said. “Coach [Josh] Henson at A&M was the first one to acknowledge that he may be the best guard or center in his class. Coach [Charlie] Dickey at Oklahoma State was the first to offer, then Coach [Bill] Bedenbaugh at Oklahoma offered, and then Coach Henson got Coach [Jimbo] Fisher to look at the film and they offered. I know TCU and Texas are really interested.”

The physical attributes are easy to see. He viewed himself as a receiver as an eighth grader and moved around well on the basketball court, according to Steinbruck.

“That’s helped him tremendously and is exactly what colleges are looking for, being able to block those big, athletic defensive linemen,” he said. “They love his athleticism, how fast he is and how good his feet are. Then, when you hear about his character, they’re wasting no time to offer.”

Speaking of that character, Dickson is the youngest player on Flour Bluff’s leadership council.

“For an underclassman to be on our leadership team you have to have high-character and a phenomenal work ethic, a guy that always puts the team before himself,” Steinbruck said.

Those are qualities Steinbruck sees in many of his players whose families live on the nearby Naval base.

“We have a lot of Navy kids here, and the quality I see in them is that they’re really resilient,” he said. “They can respond to adverse things well because they never know at any point in time their whole life can change.”

Dickson’s life will change in December, there’s no getting around that. But he’s well-equipped to persevere while his mother tends to her duties.

“His time, dedication and hard work are paying off, but he still has to stay humble and remember where he came from,” his mom said. “He doesn’t get a big head. He’s still grateful. He still has two more years to get going.”

Candace Dickson is scheduled to return from deployment in time for her son’s graduation. By then, there is no telling how many offers he’ll have accumulated.

Even though she won’t be home, the two will be in lock-step about his future.

“I want him to go where he will get the best degree, so if he doesn’t make the NFL he will have a career path that he’ll want to follow,” she said. “So that should impact where you go; don’t just go because you like the facility, the football field or the color. Go where they are going to help you after football.”

For now, Dickson is focused on the three offers he does have.

“More will come, but right now those three are the main ones that have reached out and they trust in me enough to give me an offer,” he said. “I look at all three schools the same way; they all have equal opportunity right now.”

Born in Virginia, Dickson said his family would trust him wherever he decided to go.

They’ll figure it out together, just like they always have.

 

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