Liberty County native honored
Jeff Johnson inducted into the
Florida Sports Hall of Fame
MARIANNA, FL – Athletic Director and head baseball coach Jeff Johnson was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony held at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville on Nov. 8.
“The Florida Sports Hall of Fame recognizes and honors Florida’s greatest sports figures and leverages this collective celebrity to promote fitness awareness, education and sports activities among our state’s youth and adults,” according to the Hall of Fame website. “To be eligible, Hall of Fame candidates must have been born in the state of Florida, have significant state ties, or spent a substantial part of their amateur or professional careers in our state.”
Along with Johnson, six other new members were inducted: LeRoy Butler, Vince Carter, Greg Coleman, Tom Coughlin, Elaine Larsen, and Shannon Miller. Notable names from the 289 members over the Hall’s 62-year existence include Tim Tebow, Chipper Jones, Emmitt Smith, Deion Sanders, and Bobby Bowden.
About Jeff Johnson
Coach Johnson, a Liberty County native who grew up in Bristol, has built Chipola into one of the premier JUCO programs in the country and compiled an outstanding overall record of 986-460-3 in 27 seasons at the helm of the Indians. In 2022, he was also named to the NJCAA Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Johnson led the Indians to their first National Championship in 2007 then repeated the accomplishment with back-to-back National Titles in 2017 and 2018. His teams have won 14 Panhandle Conference Championships and six FCSAA/Region VIII Championships, including three consecutive titles from 2017 to 2019.
Over 250 players have moved on to four-year universities and/or professional baseball in Johnson’s time at Chipola. Numerous players have been drafted out of Chipola since Johnson became the head coach at Chipola in 1997. In 2017 alone, Chipola had 11 players drafted, tied for the most that season with Stanford University, University of Texas, and the University of Michigan. Overall, Coach Johnson has coached 19 Major Leaguers in his 27 years at Chipola including MLB All-Stars (Jose Bautista – 6x; Russell Martin – 4x; Patrick Corbin – 2x; Adam Duvall – 1x).
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