AUSTIN, Texas — Gary Johnson cradled gently the 4-month-old who claimed the smallest burnt orange T-shirt at Texas' pro day.

“Say cheese,” the linebacker told his son, G’Amir, from the 10-yard-line of the Longhorns' indoor practice facility. “You don’t want to smile?”

Dad smiled anyway as personnel from all 32 NFL teams packed up.

He had reason to.

Johnson didn't run the 40-yard dash in front of attendees that afternoon. He hadn’t needed to after clocking a blazing 4.43-second mark, second fastest among linebackers, at the NFL scouting combine a month earlier.

The 6-0, 226-pound Johnson focused instead on selling scouts on his hip flexibility and hands. He focused on cementing the opportunity he had longed for through years in foster care, group homes and at junior college. He focused on ensuring he could provide for a mother in poverty, eight younger siblings and two children of his own, each less than 5 months old.

Johnson focused on the towel tucked into his waist. It read simply: “Who I Do it For.”

The faces smiling back from the towel reminded Johnson of the stakes across what his guardian Lawayne Garrett calls a “life full of setbacks.”

Johnson wastes no time on self-pity.

“It’s not really a sad story,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s my life. If you know me, you know me.”

***

Breckyn Hager got to know Johnson at a team bowling outing. Hager called “shotgun.” No protest. Johnson explained he only rode in the back seat.

“In the back, when things happen, you can get out quicker, react quicker,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot of violence that go on where I come from.”

Hager’s curiosity skyrocketed. His next words: “OK, tell me everything.”

Johnson did.

He explained how his mother, Vanessa White, delivered him at 14. She battled drug addiction and lost him to the Alabama foster care system four years later. Johnson shuffled between family members, state-supported child welfare and guardians through high school. The same moves aimed at ensuring his safety sometimes robbed him of football.

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Johnson lived with his grandfather briefly when he was around 10. Then Johnson got into a fight at school. Granddad came to campus upset his grandson had fought and hit Johnson in the face with a belt buckle. Alabama’s Department of Human Resources sent Johnson to a group home for sixth and seventh grade, and it prohibited football. Johnson remembers “just wanting to get out.” Mom begged him not to give up.

“I call him ‘G’ and I said, ‘G, you don’t want this,’” White said. “ ‘Just because I – excuse my language – [expletive] up my life doesn’t mean you have to.”

Johnson returned to play in eighth and ninth grade. But he was ruled academically ineligible as a sophomore and benched as a transfer the following year after moving to an AAU teammate’s poultry farm in Horton, Alabama. Garrett, Johnson’s teammate’s father, describes the community as “white as white.”

“He’d never been in the country where we’re at,” Garrett said. “We come up the road and he’s seeing all these fences and looking, just me and him. He said, ‘Where I’m from, fences are made to keep people out. Up here, fences are made to keep stuff in.’”

***

In Horton, Johnson learned to wash clothes and care for the farm’s 88,000 chickens. He triple-lettered as a senior in football, basketball and track, winning a state title with his 10.59-second 100-meter dash. Johnson also earned his family’s first high school degree in four generations. The diploma rides safely in his car armrest, he explains, only because “I got to get a bigger wallet.”

Then Johnson exploded at Dodge City (Kan.) Community College, where he collected a league-best 133 tackles along with 8 1/2 sacks, four interceptions, three fumble recoveries, and three scores off turnovers in 2016.

Johnson committed to Alabama but reversed course when the online math class for which he had taken out more than $1,000 in student loans didn’t meet Southeastern Conference requirements. Instead, he made what he called a “business decision” not to forfeit the funds and risk failing a replacement course. He completed his associate’s degree that May and reported to Texas.

***

It was then, Texas linebacker Anthony Wheeler explains, that teammates needed to take Johnson under their wing. Johnson didn’t immediately start games. He clashed with defensive coordinator Todd Orlando. Struggling to adjust to more-demanding academics and scheduling requirements, Johnson “stayed in trouble,” Wheeler told USA TODAY Sports. “When he first got here, he was always on punishment.”

The entire linebackers corps shouldered consequences. Extra running, bear crawls and waking around 5 or 6 a.m. to clean. They called it “dawn patrol.”

Eventually, Johnson embraced Orlando’s rules and schematic imperatives. Johnson went to class. He boosted his GPA from 1.5 to 2.6.

“He grew a lot and became a man,” Wheeler said. “He learned, ‘I got to do better for my brothers and for myself.’”

That success translated to the field, where he went on to make 20 starts in two seasons. A team-high 90 tackles as a senior brought Johnson’s career total to 140, along with 22 1/2 tackles for loss, 8 1/2 sacks, three forced fumbles, a fumble recovery and 12 quarterback hurries. After his 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, NFL teams reached out. Johnson visited Pittsburgh and Oakland. Representatives from each organization complimented his versatility, how he would match up against athletic tight ends and big-bodied receivers. Think a bigger hybrid dime with utility in subpackages and on special teams.

“There’s potential there,” said ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay, who projects Johnson as a middle-of-Day-3 selection. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he continues to get better over time because he has that ability and just the raw talent.”

***

Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger agrees. First, he and Johnson respected each other’s game. Then Ehlinger asked Johnson where he came from.

Like with Hager, Johnson started from the beginning. He didn’t sugarcoat the belt buckle, shootings or nights when dinner consisted of “oodle noodles.”

Soon, a friendship blossomed between the white quarterback from affluent Austin Westlake High School and black linebacker from Birmingham. Ehlinger invited “one of the realest people I’d ever met” to his home.

“I really wanted to bring him over and really let him know he was welcome in my family and welcome in my heart,” Ehlinger told USA TODAY Sports. “If I open the doors of my house to you, I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.”

Johnson’s chief memory of the visit is seeing pictures of Ehlinger with the father he lost at age 15 to heart arrhythmia in a triathlon. “Dang,” Johnson remembered thinking. “His dad’s not here. He’s the man of the house.”

Ehlinger, aware Johnson never knew his father, said that perspective captures perfectly why he admires his now former teammate.

“He comes from obviously way harder times than I do and he can care for me and have respect for my story even [so],” Ehlinger said. “That’s kind of our relationship in a nutshell.”

***

At pro day, as Ehlinger approached Johnson asking where G’Amir’s pacifier was, the two revealed another facet to their relationship: Ehlinger is Johnson’s kids’ godfather. Each smiles as G’Amir starts to reach for things and 2-month-old daughter Milani more readily spots activity across the room. Johnson juggles draft prep with parenting.

“Nothing I didn’t sign up for,” he said. “I can handle it.”

He is eager to prove his NFL worth in order to help provide for the two of them. He also plans on completing his last few credits at Texas to earn a coaching degree, and he wants later to open a sports bar and establish a YMCA where NFL players will mentor inner-city kids like he once was.

But first, Johnson looks toward next week's NFL draft. The faces staring up from his “Who I Do It For” towel leave him anxious to know from where and how he’ll support each. They also remind him his journey encompasses more than just where he’s headed.

“I take pride in my story and where I come from,” Johnson said. “Everything I done ever been through adds fuel to the fire.”

Follow Jori Epstein on Twitter @JoriEpstein.

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