Have you ever had a person in your life that you’ve heard talked about for years, but who you’ve never actually met face-to-face?

Last week during the annual Copiah-Lincoln Community College Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony, I finally got to meet a man that I’ve heard spoken of innumerable times over the years inside Mullen Gymnasium, but never actually met.

His name is Johnny Steptoe, and he was an All-American in Wesson after the 1987 season.

Those who saw him play have called him the greatest talent to ever wear a Co-Lin basketball uniform. Steptoe now rightfully sits forever in the school’s athletic hall of fame after his induction.

When he was coming out of Amite High School in Amite, Louisiana, Steptoe could have picked to play at any junior college in the nation as they all wanted the 6-foot-7 forward.

San Jacinto Junior College in Texas, a powerhouse program that won NJCAA National Championships in 1983, 1984, and 1986 was the team that many figured would land a player of Steptoe’s talent.

At that time, Co-Lin basketball was led by Mike Jones, a member of several hall of fames himself thanks to the success he experienced leading the men’s basketball program at Mississippi College after leaving Wesson.

Jones was nothing but a winner during his four-years as head coach at his alma mater of Co-Lin from 1985-1988, going 122-21 during that time as he twice took the Wolves to the NJCAA National Tournament.

Jones wasn’t planning on conceding a player of Steptoe’s stature to any other schools and he knew he held an advantage over programs like San Jac, mainly in that CLCC is located only 72 miles due north of Tangipahoa Parish and Steptoe’s family.

For as outstanding as his play was on the basketball court, Johnny Steptoe is admittedly a shy person, more comfortable not being in the spotlight, even when he’s being inducted into the hall of fame at his alma mater.

“I’ve just never been someone that felt comfortable talking in front of a bunch of people,” said Steptoe. “My words will get jumbled up in my head and I’ll start to stutter. I’ve just always been shy.”

His old coach would tell you that a flip switched inside Steptoe when he hit the court.

“He is a naturally shy person, no doubt about it,” said Jones. “He is soft-spoken and humble in how he carries himself, but there was never anything shy or soft about the way he played the game.”

The dunks.

That’s what you hear about in story after story when people describe what it was like to watch Johnny Steptoe set foot on a basketball court.

This was the mid-1980s and we unfortunately don’t have a YouTube Channel full of highlights that we can pull up and watch, so we must rely on the stories of what many called “The Steptoe Show” to paint the picture for us.

Today, you can dunk in the warmup line of an NCAA basketball game, as you could when Steptoe played in the 1980s. There was a ban on the practice for many years and one of the first places it was outlawed was in the junior college ranks of Mississippi.

What Steptoe and his teammates could do during two-line layups after the women’s game ended was worth the price of admission according to those who paid to get into the gym early for a CLCC home game.

Jones didn’t mind his players showing off before their game tipped. When the opposing team looked down and saw Steptoe and his cohorts taking off, it could make their stomach tighten up, thinking about what would happen when the game tipped off.

“We definitely won some games before they ever started because of how intimidating we were warming up,” said Jones. “When it came to jumping, there just wasn’t much that Johnny couldn’t do.”

Competing coaches didn’t want their players watching Co-Lin jump out of the gym during warmups, hence the state association banning the practice before the NCAA ever did.

Chris Caughman was part of a handful of former teammates that came to support Steptoe last week during the program that recognized the 2024 Hall of Fame class at the Thames Center in Wesson. 

Caughman, a native of Mendenhall, vividly remembers the first time he laid eyes on his future teammate while attending basketball camp at LSU.

“It was the summer before my senior year and everyone was talking about a guy from Amite High that was the number one player in the state of Louisiana,” said Caughman. “There was a dunk contest to end the camp, and Johnny asked them if they could raise the goal. They did and he won it by doing a 360 on an 11-foot goal.”

There are more stories like that, the type that tell of something they saw Steptoe do on the court, told with raised eyebrows. Told with qualifiers like, ‘I know this is going to sound unbelievable, but I swear it’s true.’ Most who saw him play have a story like that attached to “The Steptoe Show.”

Longtime Co-Lin women’s head coach Gwyn Young was witness to many of those highlights from Steptoe during his playing days. Years later while recruiting a high schooler, the girls’ coach shared a memory from his time suiting up at a junior college that faced Jumping Johnny.

“He said he stepped in to take a charge, got his feet set, and he felt Johnny’s shorts brush against the top of his head,” said Young. “Steptoe had split his legs on the way up and jumped right over him.”

Steptoe was rated the top junior college transfer in the nation following his sophomore season. His academics still needed work though, and his recruitment was a wild time for both Steptoe and Jones.

“UNLV was the best team in the nation at that time and their coach Jerry Tarkanian really wanted him, but he would have needed to stay in Wesson for some more coursework,” said Jones. “North Carolina State, Louisville, any great program during that period was trying to get him, but he ended up signing with Southern University in Baton Rouge.”

Steptoe was eager to keep playing, but his basketball career after Co-Lin never took flight, as he battled eligibility issues. He played just nine games for Southern University during the 1988-1989 season. In that brief Division I career, he averaged a team best 20.6 points per game, for a Southern squad that made the NCAA Tournament and had a future NBA guard on the roster in Bobby Phills.

Steptoe declared for the 1989 NBA Draft but was not picked. That didn’t mean teams in the association didn’t know about him. 

Jones tells a great story about having practice interrupted by a phone call, when he tells the interrupter to take a message, they replied he might want to come grab the phone, since it was Pat Riley, head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, on the other line. 

“They all wanted him to go play overseas,” said Jones. “That’s what the NBA scouts wanted for him, to go overseas for a couple years and develop.”

Jones smiles, thinking about the shy, family-based Steptoe going to play in Spain or Greece or Germany for a Euro League team in the early 1990s. Maybe imagining what could have been but knowing his former player to his core. Knowing that Europe was just too far from Tangipahoa Parish for that to ever work.

“I could have been a Chicago Bull at one time,” said Steptoe, who has more salt than pepper streaking his wizened beard today. “It just never worked out and then I ended up getting into some trouble.”

His face darkens with that last sentence, and he looks down, breaking eye-contact. 

I reach up and put my hand on his shoulder, knowing some of the hard times he faced when he was a younger man.

“Johnny, I’ve made mistakes too. That’s part of being a human being. It’s all about how you respond. Your legacy of good is way bigger than any mistake you’ve ever made. You deserve this.”

His eyes meet mine, and he returns my smile, showing me the gentle side of this giant man.

Steptoe has overcome some physical ailments in his life suffered after his playing career ended. A couple different leg injuries have slowed his gait. 

Nearing 60-years old, the days of him being able to jump and touch the top of the backboard are long in the rearview mirror of his life.

When the physical begins to deteriorate, we must lean on connections that plumb to a deeper level. Everyone wants to be your friend when you are the number one recruit in high school and the number one recruit in junior college and you are jumping over people like they are traffic cones as you average 30 points per game.

Where are all the fair-weather friends when you don’t make it? Where are they almost 40 years after you reached your highest heights?

I’m not sure where the people who gave Johnny Steptoe bad advice back in the 1980s are today. They probably schlepped off to whisper poison in the ear of the next great talent.

Who remains, when the thunderous noise of a packed Mullen Gymnasium has long ago faded?

For Johnny Steptoe, the answer to that question is Mike Jones, as his former coach has kept in constant contact with his most prized recruit through the ups and downs of life.

Jones is a Co-Lin Hall of Famer himself. He knows that Steptoe’s enshrinement has been long overdue, but he and the school both wanted the timing to be right for Johnny. They didn’t just want to put his name on a plaque, they wanted him to come to Wesson and experience the honor in person.

So, with some coaxing from his coach, Steptoe returned to campus last week for the first time since 1987. His family beamed with pride alongside his teammates as his bio was read during his induction.

They crowded around both he and Jones as countless pictures were taken by Steptoe’s children and grandchildren.

Both player and coach speak of each other with an apparent, abiding love. 

“He just knew how to get the best out of you,” said Steptoe of his coach. “I’m so thankful for everything he’s ever done for me. I love him with my whole heart.”

When Jones made those recruiting trips 40 years ago in his pursuit of a supremely talented teenager, could he ever imagine the journey he’d see Steptoe follow, with all the good times and the bad?

No, he says, he had no idea. 

“Johnny went through some tough times, some of those during the recruiting process when he was leaving Co-Lin,” said Jones. “It just made our bond stronger, and he tells me all the time that the biggest mistake he made was not listening to us when we tried to help him in his recruitment after Co-Lin. He’s always shown myself and his teammates nothing but love and respect and I think that’s why you’ve got so many people that are so proud of him receiving this accomplishment.”

The days of Johnny Steptoe busting out a 360 dunk in warm-ups before another packed game in Wesson and Mike Jones stalking the sidelines with a head full of black hair as he rips off his sports coat, daring the referees to make a call that goes against his Wolves, those days now live in perpetuity.

That was the past, a past that those who saw it happen, won’t ever forget.

 A past when “The Steptoe Show” was on center stage for the Co-Lin Wolves.

Cliff Furr is the sports editor at The Daily Leader. He can be reached via email at sports@dailyleader.com.