In 1982, the Livermore High School baseball program had a phenomenon on their hands. It’s not very often a 6-foot-9 high schooler roams the halls of the San Francisco Bay Area suburbs. For the Livermore Cowboys they had an ace on the mound and on the basketball court. The son of Carol and Charles “Bud” Johnson, Randy Johnson entered his senior year as a standout but often out of control two sport athlete.
6-foot-9, and 170-pounds, the skinny, lanky high school prospect put fear in the eyes of his opponents on the baseball field. A scowl on his face, intense and focused - yet increasingly wild with the command of his fastball, hitters literally feared for their lives. Opposing high school hitters would stand on the edge of the batter’s box to avoid being in the vicinity of Johnson’s 90 mile per hour fastball that no one (including Johnson) knew where would end up.
On the basketball court, Johnson used his lanky frame to his advantage and developed as a two-sport athlete. Fielding multiple offers from colleges and professional scouts, Johnson spent the last portion of his high school career weighing his options.
In one of his final games as a high school baseball player, 27 major league baseball organizations had scouts in the stands to assess his potential. Like most emerging high schoolers, Johnson was plagued with the question,
“What do you want to do with your life?”
For whatever reason the age of 16-18 years old is the time in modern society where the heat is turned up for young adults. Time to figure things out. Time to decide what you’re going to be. Time to carve out your future. Time to commit to a prosperous journey. Time to determine you’re going to be “successful.”
In 1982 a standout prospect in two sports, Randy Johnson experienced this pressure funnel. Now, forty years later high schoolers feel even more pressure to determine who they’re going to be, what they’re going to do. How they’re going to provide, how they’re going to carve out a career. For Johnson, one thing seemed to be key.
Options. Broad interests. Diversified passions.
His career as a baseball player is well known, some may know he played basketball as well, but what few know is Johnson’s real passion was off the field and court of play. It was in the vast space of photography. In his free time he would shoot photographs and explore the world through the lens of his camera.
Randy Johnson the baseball player.
Randy Johnson the basketball player.
Randy Johnson the photographer.
After graduating high school in the spring of 1982, Randy Johnson was selected in the 4th round of the Major League Baseball draft. Now pitted with the opportunity to condense his interests and passions down to just one thing, Johnson chose the path that allowed his passions to flourish the longest.
He would forgo the Major League Baseball draft and instead enroll at the University of Southern California on a baseball scholarship. In the classroom, he of course would study photojournalism.
While at USC he would play four years of baseball, two years of basketball and would also work for the school newspaper as a photographer. As a photographer for Daily Trojan he would continue to hone his photography skills. Even as a busy two sport athlete and highly touted professional baseball prospect, Johnson still had the time to dabble in passionate interests. The time away from the field, and training allowed him the opportunity to step back, to channel his motivation into developing in another craft. The chance to explore another artistry.
Don’t Condense Your Passions Unless You Have To
In an era in which early specialization reigns supreme, Randy Johnson shows us a different path. If he had been playing baseball in the 2020s instead of the late 1970s and early 1980s he would have been pushed to abandon any and all interests that weren’t aligned with baseball. Instead, he held on to his passions for as long as he could, eventually forced to reorganize and put some things on the back burner.
A prioritization any high performer understands. We don’t have time for everything, but we don’t have to abandon everything before we’re required to. There’s always a little more runway than we think.
Heading into the final two years of his time at USC, Johnson decided to drop basketball and focus on playing baseball for the Trojans. In the margins, photography remained of course.
In 1985, Johnson was selected again in the Major League Baseball draft. This time, in the second round by the Montreal Expos. As a minor leaguer he would head to the east coast. Upstate New York. Indianapolis, Indiana always returning home to his parents in California in the offseason. While home he would sift through old “negatives” - a term for unedited photos. He would look through these old photos taken while at USC and keep his passion for photography burning. While competing at a high level, something about the artistry of photography always remained as an outlet outside of baseball.
After a few years in the minor leagues, he would make his major league debut in 1988. One year after arriving in the major leagues, Johnson was traded to the Seattle Mariners where his career was thrusted into the spotlight. The deeper he got into the development of his pitching craft the less margin he had for multiple interests.
Long gone were the days of playing basketball for the Trojans, but as he became one of the most prominent players in all of professional sports, his love for photography would join basketball on the backburner. The pursuit of mastery in baseball had taken Johnson to a stratosphere few understand, all-consuming concentration on being the best.
And the best he would become.
From 1989 until his retirement in 2010 few have matched the production and outcomes of Randy Johnson on the baseball diamond. Ten times selected to the Major League Baseball All-Star game. Johnson is one of just 24 pitchers with at least 300 career wins. He ranks 22nd in the all-time wins list with 303 victories. His 4,785 career strikeouts ranks second in the history of the game and his five Cy Young Awards are second in history as well.
To say he attained mastery in his craft would be an understatement.
Randy Johnson undoubtedly is one of the best pitchers to ever play. A true artist on the field and in his craft.
One of the best to ever do it, he retired from Major League Baseball in 2010. He was selected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.
De-Centralize Your Identity
According to the Mental Health Foundation, one-in-five present day retirees experience depression. Recent studies have indicated that retirement increases the chances of suffering from clinical depression by around 40-percent. The finish line many spend their whole lives pursuing is actually something that can be detrimental to well-being. How can this be?
There could be a variety of factors, but one culprit that should be considered is the pitfalls of placing your identity in the ONE thing that you do.
Occupations, careers, are a means to an end. They aren’t the basis on which we should build an identity. For many professional athletes the end of their playing days can become a brutal beginning into obscurity and loneliness. What do we do when the thing that is most important to our identity is taken away? For some high performers this happens all the time. Becoming excellent in your craft, excellent in a distinct skill set that leads to notoriety, success, financial prosperity and meaning is great, but what about when that chapter closes? Or when you’re let go from the position? Or when the company downsizes? Or when you can’t get hitters out anymore and want to retire from professional baseball?
For Randy Johnson, this retirement journey began in 2010. After decades at the highest level, Johnson hung the glove and cleats up and stayed home when others made the trek to spring training in February. This newfound whitespace on the calendar provided the perfect opportunity to step back into his first love and passion - photography.
You can retire from an occupation. But the best don’t retire from the pursuit of mastery. Instead of scouring scouting reports and relentlessly preparing in the bullpen for his starts every fifth day, Johnson began preparing for trips around the world to take photos of events, places, people, animals - through his eyes.
It started with sporting events, some of the same arenas he played in and traveled to as a professional. Johnson was now on the sidelines meticulously studying the event from a different perspective. Shooting from a different lens.
He now had a new passion to pursue. Like reconnecting with an old friend, he was able to pick up where he left off after squeezing photography out of his life to pursue his occupation.
His love for photography, never left.
“I try to capture the moment at every event, good, bad or indifferent, taken through my eyes, the way I see it unfold.”
With more opportunity at hand, Johnson became all in. Traveling around the world to capture images of wildlife in the African safaris, trekking through the jungles in Rwanda to photograph silverback gorillas, historic landmarks like the Colosseum in Rome, and music concerts performed by megastars like Elton John, and U2. Each time returning home to scan the thousands of images he took to find the best ones.
His photography became as excellent as his pitching endeavors. The result of the continual pursuit of mastery in all things. Whatever the interest, Johnson seeks to develop the craft. In the fall of 2022, a photo surfaced of Randy Johnson on the sideline of an NFL game in Phoenix with a professional photography lens. Just another photographer in their element. Shooting the game, giving the world an opportunity to see life through his eyes, as he sees it.
The world was surprised to see Randy Johnson, one of the greatest athletes in the history of the world, on the sideline of an NFL game photographing other elite athletes. It almost seemed beneath an athlete of his stature to be relegated to the sidelines yet again. Perhaps it was a window into how he sees the world. A lens in which we can be free from the restraints of outcomes, accomplishments and expectations. Free to create, chase our passions and enjoy the pursuit of mastery.
Success Is The Continual Pursuit of Mastery
Mastery is the comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment. From the sidelines of State Farm Stadium in Phoenix Randy Johnson gave us a window into a freeing perspective.
Emerging leaders do not need to be tied down to ruthless expectations in careers. We don’t have to lose who we are in the pursuit of doing great things. We can diversify our interests, we don’t have to place our identity in one thing and one thing alone.
Every high performer must confront the idea of ambition drift. This is when our ambitions move from pure, clean perspectives to transactional, conflicted and pressure packed views. It’s when we go from groundedness, fulfillment, contentment and joy to anxiety, pressure, stress, idolatry. It’s the subtle shift that happens when we’re not intentional. It’s what happens when we take the things we’re working on and move our relationship from mastery (I want to just use this as an opportunity to build skill) to outcomes (I need this thing to give me something I don’t have - notoriety, wealth, value).
