Johnny Neumann poses for a photo at Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss., Monday, Feb. 17, 2014.
(DM Photo/Aditya Khare)
One former University of Mississippi basketball star has returned to play an entirely different game nearly 40 years after leaving the university.
Ole Miss basketball icon Johnny Neumann, 63, is currently enrolled at the university in pursuit of a degree.
Focusing on general studies, Neumann intends to minor in journalism, parks and recreation and computer science.
Each minor has a quality that will help him professionally after graduation, Neumann explain, whether it is sports writing from journalism, leadership skills from parks and recreation, or the technical assets from computer science.
“I waited to choose my minors until I really found out which direction I wanted to go,” he said.
Neumann said people think he is coming back to get the degree for himself, but he has his priorities elsewhere.
“I’m doing it so other athletes understand how important a degree is,” he said.
As a star athlete, Neumann had many things given to him, but he said if he had his degree he could have worked at what he wanted to do.
“If I had my degree right now I could be coaching major college basketball,” he said. “But, without my degree, I cannot coach.”
Neumann hopes to be a role model for children because he knows they will make mistakes like he did when he was younger.
“It’s an opportunity to show them that if they are an athlete and they do have a degree they can use them both in unison,” Neumann said. “And that has a tremendous impact on their future life.”
On financial aid, Neumann said he has had to do everything on his own. He said he would not have been able to pursue his degree without the help of former teammate Steve Farese and friend Michael Joe Cannon.
Neumann’s former teammate Farese said he is more than happy to help Johnny with his education.
“He was immature in college; a lot of people are,” Farese said. “He realizes the mistakes he made.”
According to Farese, every college should reward athletes if they come back to finish their education because of what the athletes sacrifice and bring to the university.
Farese is concerned that schools are continuing to use athletes just for their own benefit. He remembers working so hard during practice that he would be too tired to even eat, which in turn caused him to struggle to keep up with assignments.
“It’s a different animal,” Farese said. “I wish all universities were required to help people like Johnny.”
Neumann said he hopes that coming back to get his degree will bring positive publicity to Ole Miss and other public universities.
“I was able to go back to my school and gain my degree,” he said. “I hope that it will show other schools to be more receptive to athletes who want to come back to school.”
After his father’s death, Neumann left school to become a professional athlete, and he said he has always felt like he let the university down.
“That’s why I never really came back to the university,” Neumann said. “I should have.”
But being 63 and on campus is not as weird as one would think, yet when it comes to being in the classroom Neuman holds back.
“Sometimes I won’t ask questions in class, but I’ll ask the professor later,” Neumann said. “There’s so many different kinds of writing and so many different things that didn’t even exist when I went to school.”
Though classes can be tough, but Neumann respects how each teacher handles his or her setting. He said he is especially impressed with how journalism professor Alysia Steele runs her class.
Steele, assistant professor of Multiple Platform Journalism, teaches Neumann’s journalism 102 class and said he is very engaged and vocal in her classroom.
“He gives a perspective that is not the norm in the classroom,” Steele said.
Even though she is hard on him, Neuman understands she wants him to succeed at his maximum potential. He said that is the same principle he was familiar with in sports.
“She’s going to break you down. She doesn’t want to, but she’ll hit you with a 50 right away to wake you up and say, ‘Hey, you’re doing this wrong, Johnny,’” he said. “See, Ms. Steele, she’s just like being a coach.”
On the first day of Steele’s class Neumann gave a small speech about the importance of education. Steele said it is good to see someone like Neumann coming back and being an example for students. She said she hopes students will listen to him.
“I agree with Johnny, take advantage of what you have now and learn everything you can while you’re here,” Steele said.
Neumann said students need to take advantage of what each unique professor has to offer.
“I don’t know if the students will appreciate this until later in life,” he said.
Neumann said there are pros and cons for sharing his life experiences, as people might recognize all of the things he has accomplished without his degree and ask themselves if they need their degree.
Though not everyone will be blessed to have the same opportunities as him, Neumann said he hopes students and athletes alike will understand that it is more than just life experiences that come with a degree. A degree helps people fulfill their responsibilities as well.
The biggest inspiration Neumann had for coming back to school was his 6-year-old daughter. Born perfectly healthy, Esmeralda later developed nephrotic syndrome, a rare kidney disease.
“The main thing right now is my little girl,” Neumann said. “That’s why I originally returned to America.”
Neumann went to coach the Romanian national team, and he said that out of the blue all of the money he was supposed to receive stopped.
“Then all of a sudden God hits me upside the face,” Neumann said. “You ain’t got no money, you ain’t got no job, and you got a sick daughter.”
His belief in God is very strong, and after that series of events Neumann knew what he was being told to do.
“Get back to America, and go back to Ole Miss. Get your degree, and I’ll take care of you,” Neumann said.
Neumann encourages students to find a major that they enjoy because they could be very gifted at it.
“You have to be in a field or profession that you love and is not work,” he said.
Throughout his years away from college, Neumann has met a lot of great people, princesses and presidents. He said out of all these experiences, however, that he could not be any happier being back in Oxford.
“It means much more for me to be back in Oxford with all these people that talked to me and tried to steer me the right way and help me when I have a problem,” Neumann said. “This is what life’s about.”
