Manheim Township’s helmet stickers are the Superman logo. The S, in this case, stands for Streaks.
Every inch of Hayden Johnson’s helmet is covered. The quarterback carefully positioned them around the lightning bolt logo and the ear hole. Each the same distance apart.
The placement is meticulous. Flawless.
“That’s him,” coach Mark Evans said. “He’s a perfectionist all the way.”
The stickers were a reward for reaching team goals on offense, defense and special teams. Johnson earned five or six every week. The helmet has turned into a symbol of perhaps the greatest single-season performance in Lancaster-Lebanon League football history.
Johnson, one of LNP | LancasterOnline.com’s finalists for male Athlete of the Year, completed 76% of his passes for 2,896 yards. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound senior connected on 49 touchdowns with zero interceptions.
Those are his numbers. They’re merely the exclamation point to his story.
Johnson used to run onto the field at Gene Kruis Stadium after games and toss the ball around with his dad. He was a kindergartner then and already Township’s QB of the future.
From calling his own plays in third grade to 6:30 a.m. film sessions as a three-year varsity starter, greatness was his only mission.
“There’s no question Hayden is very passionate,” Evans said. “He lived it, ate it, slept it. He wanted more. He wanted everything we could give him.”
That was true before Johnson put on his first uniform.
Born to throw
Eric Johnson noticed something was different about his son when he was a toddler. Dad could toss an object to him, like a beanbag, and Hayden stopped what he was doing and caught it. His hand-eye coordination was impeccable.
Sports grabbed Johnson’s interest from the moment he could walk. He used to take a sawed-off golf club and whack balls into a net in the garage. He did it for hours, making up little challenges along the way.
Hayden threw a football everywhere he went. The bus stop. The playground. Inside his house. When the family took a trip, his mom, Tara, made sure a ball traveled with them.
Eric and his son used to flip it across the island in the kitchen. The goal was to catch as many in a row as possible. The game often lasted until Eric dropped one on purpose just to stop.
“That was what stimulated me as a child,” said Johnson, who has two older brothers and an older sister. “It still does obviously. I picked up on it at a young age because all of my siblings were into sports.”
Hayden hurled passes to Landon Kennel and the other kids during recess at Nitrauer Elementary. The two were best friends and a perfect match. One could catch and one could throw. Kennel received 25 of those 49 touchdown passes last fall.
Eric brought McDonald’s to school for lunch and used the time to recruit boys for the flag football team that dad coached and Hayden quarterbacked from when he was about 5.
“Even at that age he was extremely accurate,” said Eric, who played running back and linebacker at Penn Manor and Gettysburg College. “He had this uncanny ability to put the ball exactly where it needed to be.”
Within a few years, the group was a well-oiled machine. Johnson could survey a defense, call out a series of numbers and everyone instantly knew the play.
Some opponents were stunned by the sophistication of the offense Hayden operated. Some were used to it because they watched this group play together for years.
Johnson carried those skills from D team to C team to B team. When he arrived at Township for his freshman year, he was on the verge of becoming the starter.
The quarterback of the future became the quarterback of the present. He soon turned into a quarterback for the ages.
“It was there from the very beginning,” Eric said. “It’s not something we taught him. He just had this interesting ability. He had that gift.”
Manheim Township’s Hayden Johnson, a male Athlete of the Year finalist on Friday, June 28, 2024.
One of a kind
After Township’s final game, an overtime loss to Harrisburg in the District Three Class 6A final, the coaches lined up to bid farewell to the seniors.
Johnson was the last player to pass through. One of the last people he saw was Andy Paine, the QB coach and offensive coordinator. The emotions of the moment overwhelmed both of them.
“I lost it; I broke down,” Paine said. “I cried harder than I’ve cried in a long time. I looked at him and I said, ‘I’ll never coach another one like you.’”
The Harrisburg defeat still stings seven months later. Johnson peeled off the sticker that said District Three runner-up before taking his photo for LNP. He referred to the Blue Streaks as 12-0 before begrudgingly correcting their record to 12-1.
Manheim Township senior quarterback Hayden Johnson during Section 1 of the L-L Football Media Day festivities at the LNP | LancasterOnline offices in Lancaster on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023.
Johnson’s voice wavered when he described the painful aftermath of that result. A district championship was the dream. It felt like Township’s destiny.
Everything that preceded that chilly Black Friday loss was magical. Township won 12 games by an average of 33 points against a powerhouse schedule. The Streaks scored 45 points per game and could have scored more if the first team offense played both halves.
Friday nights were a showcase. A chance for a group that played together their entire football lives to put their excellence on display. Johnson was the leader. The centerpiece.
“I had the easiest job in the world for the last three years,” Paine said. “He’s everything you want from someone playing the most difficult position in all of sports. He can make every throw in the book. He made me look good when I called bad plays.”
Early in his sophomore year, Johnson asked Evans if the two could study film for about an hour each morning before school started. They tucked away into the quiet of the coach’s room next to the locker room.
It was just the two of them that first season. Next season the other quarterbacks sometimes joined the sessions. When Johnson was a senior, there were eight or nine players showing up regularly.
“He was on a quest,” Evans said. “He had such a thirst for knowledge. He wanted to dissect things so much.”
Evans used a Latin term to describe his quarterback: nulli secundus. It means second to none.
If you ask Johnson about his numbers, he’ll talk about his teammates. He’ll mention Kennel’s touchdowns or the passes caught by Nick Palumbo or Asher Wolfe or Antonio Vazquez. He’ll mention Declan Clancy rushing for more than 1,000 yards or the work of the team’s revamped offensive line.
“Everybody contributed in their own way,” Johnson said. “It was the guys around me that developed and brought us together. Those stats show my efforts and contributions but they also show everyone else’s.”
Only 4.5 passes per game fell incomplete. The ball never went into the opponent’s hands. Paine said he could only remember three or four passes all season that even had a chance to be intercepted.
Johnson could have pursued other sports. He has a 2 handicap in golf. He was talented enough to be a starter on the basketball and lacrosse teams. He chose to throw all of his energy toward being the best QB possible.
“You look at the stats and you think they’re made up,” Paine said. “Then if you actually watch the tape and watch what he did this season, he was in complete control.”
A place in history
Johnson arrived at Lehigh University a few days after graduation and began his bid to become a college starter. He’ll study finance and will have a career in business waiting for him when he graduates.
The next four years might not be the final football chapter for Johnson. His goals extend beyond Saturday afternoons.
“The sky’s the limit, in my opinion,” Evans said.
Does that mean Johnson could reach the NFL?
“I don’t see why not," Evans said. "He has all the tools.”
Johnson exited Township as the most accomplished passer in school history. He broke records held by Pat Bostick that once seemed untouchable.
Only Lancaster Catholic’s Kyle Smith, Manheim Central’s Evan Simon and Lampeter-Strasburg’s Bear Shank passed for more yards than Johnson’s total of 7,536.
It’s hard to imagine a better performance than the one Johnson delivered over his 13 games as a senior.
“It’s almost like this past year is a unicorn,” Paine said. “You saw it one time. You’ll never see it again.”
Johnson was Township’s Superman. Second to none.
Hayden Johnson (1) of Manheim Township passes in the flat against Harrisburg during District 3 Class 6A football championship action at Manheim Township’s Gene Kruis Field in Lancaster on Friday, November 24, 2023.
JEFF REINHART | Sports Writer
