My “West Point Football Report” provides features on Army’s football players. Your subscription fee through Substack and Stripe will be donated, 100 percent, to the Wounded Warriors Project my 501-(c)(3), Books for Sparty.

Tom Shanahan is an author, award-winning sportswriter and college football historian focused on the sport’s integration. He earned first-place honors from the FWAA for his story on the 1962 Rose Bowl.

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By TOM SHANAHAN

Army’s Markell Johnson sat for an interview after practice just three days after he scored his first career touchdown Saturday in the Black Knights’ win over Colgate.

Among the questions the sophomore fullback answered was how he found his way to West Point from Allenhurst, Georgia, population 584. He didn’t know it when his senior year began, but he had the right friends as coaches at both places.

Johnson was lightly recruited while playing at Liberty County High, where Derek Sills, the defensive coordinator, felt his team’s star running back/linebacker was overlooked. Sills contacted Army offensive coordinator Brent Davis, an old friend by way of Georgia Southern.

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