"I felt it felt right," Armon Johnson says of replacing Moe Golashani as the head coach of the Hug varsity basketball team this season. "It's like a place I wanted to leave an imprint, you know, and try and help as best as I could."
Johnson, a former Traner, Hug and UNR standout, had a brief career in the NBA after being drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2010.
As a high school player, he tied the state record for career points scored with 2,616 over the 2004 to 2007 seasons for the Hawks. At Nevada, he was WAC freshman of the year and all-conference twice, with averages of 14.3 points and 4.4 assists before being enshrined in the Nevada Hall of Fame in 2020.
He says in years past he came back to Hug to volunteer feeling he needed to give back for all he had received.
"Hug prepared me for my future, for college, for things like that, for the professional ranks because it made me be a man," he says of what he got from playing basketball for Hug. "I had to step up. I had to be mature. I had to be responsible. You know, being in class on time, everything around here was motivating to me. Like, when I was here at Hug, the UNR Wolf Pack guys would come to open [the] gym. You know, they would come and support, watch our games, things like that. That was always super motivating and a huge part of the reason I went to Nevada. Just having those guys support, I always had that motivating factor that, wow, I got a lot of people I can't let down."
He says his plans as head coach are to build a local dynasty. His coaching philosophy centers around making extra passes, putting in extra work, never giving up and being confident but not arrogant.
Reporting shared with Our Town Reno, December 2024