Sal Maiorana

@salmaiorana

Johnson won the 2015 Rimington Award which is given to the nation's top center in FCS.

Johnson was a three-year starter and a second-team AP All-American in 2015.

He played high school football at Gates-Chili and was a two-time All-County selection.





National Football League scouts typically don’t spend a whole lot of time inquiring about players who grew up playing football in the Rochester area, but for the second year in a row, there has been activity in the region.

Last year, former McQuaid Jesuit standout Brian Parker was on the radar of several teams after a solid career at the University of Albany, and though the tight end was not selected in the 2015 NFL Draft, he ultimately hooked on with the Kansas City Chiefs.

This year, it’s Bruce Johnson - who prepped at Gates Chili High School before going on to a decorated career as a center at the University of Maine – drawing interest in the ongoing pre-draft process.



“When it comes to the draft you never really know,” Johnson said recently when asked to gauge his draft status. “Right now my range is the fifth to seventh round, so I think I can go off that third day, I’m hoping and praying, but there could be a possibility I don’t get drafted and that some team signs me as a priority free agent.”

Johnson was a two-time All-Monroe County selection as an offensive and defensive linemen, but one of the biggest keys to his getting a scholarship offer from Maine was his participation in the Changing The Community program founded by Greg Hopkins. The Rochester-based organization trains and mentors youth and high school football players and teaches them life skills and life lessons while also getting their names out to colleges all across the country. Johnson is one of about 35 athletes in the past five years who have received athletic scholarships with the help of CTC.

Johnson chose Maine, and after redshirting his first year and playing minimally his second, the 6-foot-3, 300-pounder was the rock in the middle of Maine’s offensive line his last three years at the Football Championship Series level school. “If you look at any kid that’s going to play Division I football, I guarantee they went through CTC,” said Johnson. “I got involved my junior year of high school, I went to some football camps, one at Rutgers, one at Buffalo, and they definitely help kids out of Rochester get offers. I think I had one offer before I went there, and I ended up with about six or seven.”

In 2015, he was named second-team all-American by the Associated Press, and he won the Rimington Award which is named in honor of the former Nebraska center and College Football Hall of Famer, Dave Rimington, who went on to a seven-year NFL career in the 1980s. Johnson had no idea he was even in the running for the trophy that is given to the top center in FCS, but it sure was cool when he found out.

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“One of the media guys called me and told me; I had no clue what he was talking about, but I was ecstatic,” said Johnson. “I asked him, was he serious? I didn’t think it was true. I knew they had the award for FBS, but I didn’t know they had it for our level.”

Since graduating from Maine in December with a degree in mass communication and a minor in anthropology, Johnson has been back in Rochester working out at Power Train in East Rochester under the watchful eye of Adam Terry, a former offensive lineman at Syracuse and a second-round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens who played parts of five seasons in the NFL before injuries cut short his career in 2011.

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Johnson was not invited to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, so he tore it up at Power Train for about three months because he knew he needed to ace his pro day at Maine, and he felt he did. It was attended by about 10 teams including the Bills, and he also had a private workout for the San Diego Chargers.

Bills director of college scouting Kelvin Fisher didn’t have much to say about Johnson because the Bills haven’t studied him closely, but he made it clear that even though he’s only 300 pounds, that should not be a deterrent for Johnson in the NFL. “We have the tape, we evaluated him, and he’s on our list,” said Fisher. “I’ve seen 300-pound centers make it and play for a long time. I think it’s all about his ability and how he adjusts.”

Johnson said several of his recorded pro day numbers would have ranked him in the top five of the centers at the Combine had he been able to work out in Indianapolis. This did not surprise his high school coach at Gates Chili, Jason Benham, because he knows of Johnson’s work ethic.

“He was a great story because he’s probably one of the hardest working kids to come out of here,” said Benham. “He didn’t have much experience when he came here because he was a big kid and he was too big for some of the youth football programs with the weight limits. A lot of the bigger guys don’t have a lot of football experience, but he improved every year and a lot of it was his offseason work habits. He did it all on his own and he deserves all the credit.”

MAIORANA@Gannett.com