University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Luke Johnson Named Southern Miss Student Athlete of the Week
1/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Jan. 11, 2006
Luke Johnson
P/K, 6-0, 240, r-Sr.
Laurel, Miss. (West Jones HS)
This award recognizes excellence in academics, athletics and community service among the college and high school youth. It also provides a living memorial to former Ohio State football coaching legend Woody Hayes and the excellence for which he stood. There are six winners for the award, a male and a female from each of the three collegiate divisions.
The award will be given at a banquet on Friday, Jan. 27, 2006 at Villa Milano Restaurant in Columbus at 6:30 p.m. Each honoree is all-conference and most are All-Americans. They have a combined grade point average of 3.82, and 84 community programs have benefited from their volunteer efforts.
Johnson, who holds a 3.40 grade point average and graduated with his bachelor's degree in business administration in May 2005, has been named to the dean's list, the president's list, twice named the SportsCare Scholar Athlete for football, awarded the Conference USA Commissioner's Honor Roll and named a recipient for the commissioner's medal for academic excellence several times. He was selected the Liberty Bowl Scholar Athlete (2003) for Southern Miss and chosen to attend the NCAA Leadership Conference.
As a three-year starting punter for the Golden Eagles, Johnson was named first team All-Conference USA and to several All-American teams this past year as a senior. Selected by his teammates as one of the team's permanent captains for 2005, he finished with a 44.9 yard punt average with a long of 56 yards, placed 13 punts inside the opponent's 20-yard line and had 11 punts of 50 yards or more. He was the No. 1 punter in Conference USA and was ranked No. 7 nationally in yards per punt. He handled the team's kickoff duties as well.
For his career, he averaged 42.7 yards per punt, ranking No. 2 in the school's history behind College Football Hall of Famer and NFL All-Pro Ray Guy. He had 37 punts of 50 yards or more, 61 inside the opponents' 20-yard line, 33 that resulted in a fair catch and 23 that went into the end zone.
