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A strong presence: UNM's 'Father of Athletics' left an indelible legacy
He came to New Mexico crowned a strong man but it was not his athleticism that roused the admiration and respect for University of New Mexico coach Roy William Johnson.
It was his dogged determination – and eventual success – to build an athletic program for the school. This legacy resulted in the university naming both its gymnasium and the adjacent field after the World War I vet.
He was born in 1892 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Swedish immigrants. Johnson was an all-around athletic competitor and broke records in 1915 strong man competitions, holding the All-American interscholastic record “for the strong man test,” according to an Aug. 3, 1920, article in the Albuquerque Journal.
Johnson’s own college career was interrupted by World War I.
During the war, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in France, where he was exposed to phosgene gas and earned a Purple Heart and the Croix de Guerre, France’s second-highest military decoration. He moved to New Mexico in 1920 hoping its climate would help him recover from the effects of the poisoning, according to a Sports Illustrated article.
The Albuquerque Morning Journal wrote a piece on Sept. 6, 1920, about his upcoming arrival to UNM. It praised his strong man honor, saying he had excelled on tests of “lung capacity, back lift, leg lift, grips, chin, dips and weight.”
It described him as a quiet, modest fellow who was six-feet tall and weighed 190 pounds, noting “he does not appear at first glance to be possessed of the enormous strength of the breaker of strength records of all of the college men of the United States.”
One strong thing he had for sure was determination.
Johnson, then 27, was head football, basketball and track team coach and launched the school’s first athletic program. A March 10, 1958, article in Sports Illustrated talked about the state’s love for Johnson.
“He took over as the one-man physical education department at the university,” the 1958 Sports Illustrated story said. “With a school enrollment of only 227, no gymnasium and no football held, Johnson faced what seemed to him a challenge. The athletic program coach Johnson built with Swedish determination has won him the admiration and affection of his students and co-workers and the nickname Ironhead. The dedication last December of the Johnson Gymnasium showed the depth of their affection.”
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A $2 million, 170,000-square-foot Johnson Center, then called Johnson Gymnasium, opened in 1957, more than three decades after coach Johnson’s arrival. Back then, it was not just a practice facility, but the home of UNM men’s basketball games. That function shifted in 1966 with the opening of The Pit, where games are still held.
The most striking thing about it by today’s standards was not removable bleachers, handball courts and swimming pool, but the ample parking all around the building. Today the gym is flanked by other buildings, an outdoor concourse and a parking structure. It sits yards away from Central Avenue, not too far from Popejoy Hall.
The university regents voted in May 1957 to name the gymnasium after him, according to a May 7, 1957, story in the Albuquerque Tribune. Another well-known figure, Tom Popejoy, was president of the university at that time. He noted that the university usually waits for someone to retire before naming a building in his honor but made an exception because of Johnson’s long career with the school, the article said.
“I’m highly honored to have the gym named in my honor,” Johnson said. “I never expected it.”
The university and the city’s public school system were barely out of their infancy when Johnson arrived. The university was established in 1889, and Albuquerque Public Schools district two years later after the state’s territorial legislature passed a law that allowed municipalities to establish school boards and sell municipal bonds to fund school construction. Johnson, according to the May 1957 article, even played a role in establishing the New Mexico High School Activities Association in 1921.
The gym underwent a $35 million major renovation beginning in 2018 and completed in March 2020. The project included a 39,000-square-foot addition, demolition and partial renovation. The new addition included expanded weight and cardio rooms, a cycling studio, indoor running and walking track, and a new east entrance lobby.
Although his life was centered around sports, it was not his only love. Johnson had a flair for the theater. After the war, he earned a degree in dramatics from the University of Poitiers in France and a degree in theater production from the University of Michigan, where he played football and ran track, according to his obituary.
Johnson retired from the university in 1959 and was inducted into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. He would live until the age of 97, dying at an Albuquerque nursing home in 1989.
The headline and story in his obituary called him UNM’s “Father of Athletics.” He was described as a big, burly man with a soft heart who was willing to work with any young men who wanted to play sports, regardless of their ability.
“He was a great discipliner, but he did it with respect and honor,” a longtime friend and former student John Dolzadelli told the Journal in 1989.
