Kansas City Kansas Community College women’s basketball has only seen five players reach the 1,000-point mark. One of those athletes is Jada Johnson, a forward from Kansas City, Mo. She has helped the Lady Blue Devils to an overall record of 18-9 and 6-4 conference record this season, and during the 2023-24 season, she has scored a team-high 571 points. If she continues at that pace, Johnson is on pace to finish with more than 1,280 career point, ranking
her third in career points behind KCKCC standouts Jurgita Kausaite (1,517 points) and Stephanie Brown (1,350 points).
Johnson began her collegiate career at Kansas Christian College in Overland Park, Kan. where she led her team averaging 13.7 PPG and shooting 43 percent from the field. During the 2022-23 season, her first at KCKCC, she once again led the team averaging 14 PPG, shooting 46.6 percent from the field and 32.7 percent from behind the arc. This season has been Johnson’s breakout year where she is averaging 21.1 PPG, shooting 53 percent from the field and 36.5 percent from behind the arc. With her outstanding season, she has won the KJCCC DII Women’s Player of the Week five times. No one else in the conference has been recognized more.
“Growing up, I played every sport, but the only one that stuck with me was basketball,” said Johnson, who graduated from Shawnee Mission North High School. “When I’m happy, basketball. When I’m sad, basketball. When I’m mad, I’ll go pick up a basketball. Everything in my life revolves around basketball. It’s just kind of my piece, I guess.”
It was at Shawnee Mission North that Johnson was first introduced to current KCKCC Coach Martina Mihailovic.
“Coach Martina was my high school coach at Shawnee Mission North, and once she told me that she got the job here (at KCKCC), I knew I had to play for her again,” Johnson said. “She does a really good job of keeping relationships on the court and off the court separate. She makes you feel comfortable as a friend as well as a coach.”
Their relationship is very meaningful to Johnson, building up a lot of trust between them over the year. However, their relationship didn’t start off too well on the court.
“My junior year at North, I got in trouble with her. I ended up quitting and not playing that year,” she said. “But she still stuck with me as a friend and checked in on me to make sure that I was alright. I came back my senior year and played for her.”
Johnson has no regrets transferring to KCKCC and has loved her time here. While the relationship that she has with Coach Martina is special, she said she also loves the bond she has with her teammates.
“I love my teammates. We had a rough patch in the beginning of the season but we’re all so close now and there aren’t any cliques “I would never trade this experience at KCKCC for anything else,.” she said.
Even though they spend every day together on the court, Johnson said they still find time off the court to hangout and be with each other, especially at KCKCC’s on-campus dorm, Centennial Hall.
“We are so blessed to have such a nice dorm on campus, and I’m lucky to have teammates who can cook for me because I am not a good cook,” she said.
With the end of her sophomore year looming, Johnson said she is unsure of what her future plans are, but she knows she would like to continue playing basketball at the collegiate level. When asked about who or what inspires her when playing the sport she loves, that answer was easy.
“I play for my grandpa. He hasn’t missed a game all season, and he says that I’m the apple of his eye,” she said. “So as long as I can play basketball, I play for him.”
