Thomas Johnson, 90, Howard University Professor dies
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Thomas Fairfax Johnson, 90, founder of the Howard University Division
of Allied Health Sciences, who played in the Negro baseball leagues in
his youth, died March 21 at the Fairland Adventist Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center in Silver Spring. He had Alzheimer's disease.
Dr. Johnson worked at Howard for 32 years, teaching undergraduate and
medical school classes and coaching the baseball, swimming and
football teams.
The Philadelphia native had graduated from Springfield College when he
began playing professional baseball for the Philadelphia Stars in the
summer of 1940. Dubbed "the Li'l Professor" by his teammates, he was a
well-built, 6-foot-1-inch, 180-pound right-handed pitcher. He returned
to baseball in 1950, when he barnstormed with the Indianapolis Clowns,
becoming friends with Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson, among other
stars of the era.
"He had a presence when he walked into a room," said his stepson,
Herman W. Phynes III.
Whether in the classroom, on the athletic fields or in social
gatherings, Dr. Johnson attracted people with quiet but fascinating
stories of his experiences.
In the 1940s, when earning a high school degree was considered an
achievement for many Americans and segregation was still considered
the normal educational experience, Dr. Johnson received a master's
degree in health and physical education at New York University in
1947. While there, he played for the New York Brown Bombers football
team. He also organized and promoted baseball while volunteering for
the Harlem Boys Club's Children's Aid Society.
During World War II, he served in the Army-Navy USO in Michigan,
Indiana and Hawaii. He set up and directed the USO Rainbow Club in
Honolulu, which served African American servicemen. While in Hawaii,
he pitched for the Hawaii Tigers in a senior league.
After the war, he returned to Washington and began teaching at Howard.
He developed an intercollegiate swim team at the school, and he served
as chairman of the NCAA's intercollegiate swimming committee from 1950
to 1958. He also revived Howard baseball as a competitive sport, after
an absence of 25 years, and picked up the sobriquet "Skipper."
During school breaks, Dr. Johnson returned to his own athletic career,
pitching for the Brandon Greys in Manitoba, Canada, and the Baltimore
Black Sox. In 1952, he successfully integrated the local Industrial
Sandlot League, pitching for the Heurich Brewers.
He also worked summers at segregated camps in Prince William County,
where city children went to escape the heat and humidity of
Washington.
By 1963, when Dr. Johnson was 46, he was the batting practice pitcher
for the Cleveland Indians while the team was playing the Senators in
Washington. The same year, he scouted for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In his academic life, Dr. Johnson left the undergraduate division of
Howard in 1958 to become a research assistant in the medical school,
teaching basic courses while he worked toward a doctorate, which he
received in 1967 from the University of Maryland. Dr. Johnson then
became an associate professor on Howard's medical faculty.
He developed a program a few years later that introduced local public
high school students to medicine as a career. Under his leadership,
Allied Health Sciences became a permanent division of the College of
Medicine.
By 1974, after he and his staff raised $1.5 million, Howard University
established the Division of Allied Health Sciences.
After leaving the medical school in 1975, Dr. Johnson became associate
dean for student affairs in the graduate arts and sciences school and
chaired the university's task force on aging. He retired in 1978.
Edward Hawthorne, then Howard's graduate school dean, said of him at
the time: "Tom Johnson retains and exhibits a never-ending faith in
the human personality. He is, has been, and no doubt will remain
people-oriented and believe that the opportunity to serve mankind is
the ultimate moral ideal."
Dr. Johnson was a fellow in the American College of Sports Medicine, a
member of the American Physiological Society and the National Jogging
Association, an executive council member of the Sports Medicine
Association and chairman of the Organization of Black Physiologists.
In 1981, he was inducted into the Washington D.C. Home Plate Club Hall
of Fame.
In retirement, he enjoyed traveling in his Airstream trailer and
visited all 50 states. After talking his way into membership in the
then-all-white Northern Virginia chapter of the Wally Bynum Caravan
Club International, he and his wife became presidents of its local
chapter.
His marriage to Myra Traynum ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 37 years, Mary Harriet Turner Johnson of
Silver Spring; a daughter from his first marriage, Shirley Johnson
Hinson of Dallas; his stepson, of Rock Hill, S.C.; a sister; two
brothers; and seven grandchildren.
By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 26, 2007; B06