by By Dan Ninham
Mesa, Arizona is 11.3 miles away from Chandler-Gilbert College. This is where Kalayna “Mya” Johnson chose to start her college journey.
Mya Johnson, 17, is a senior at Westwood High School in Mesa, AZ. She also played basketball for the club teams Run N Gun, AZ Premier, and Lady Soldiers.
“I am Navajo,” said Mya. “My mother’s clan is Tł’ááshchí’í, Red Bottom People Clan and my father’s clan is Tódich’ii’nii, Bitter Water Clan.”
“My dad was a high school basketball coach when I was growing up,” said Mya. “I fell in love with the game, the dedication, the hard work, and the success of the players he coached.”
“Basketball is the only sport I play at a very competitive level,” added Mya.
The main high school basketball accomplishments of Mya include:
– going to Australia for DownUnderSports in 2018 to represent Arizona and receiving 1 of 6 All-Tournament awards among 300 players,
– 2017-2018 East Valley 2nd Team All Region and East Valley Region Champions
– 2018-2019 East Valley 2nd Team All Region
– 2019-2020 East Valley 1st Team All Region and East Valley Region Champions, Sports360AZ All-Academic Girls Basketball Team Honorable Mention, Az Central’s Elite Top 50 Girls in Arizona, and Class of 2021 High Academic Guards in Arizona
“Being a Native American athlete means a lot to me,” said Mya. “Being able to play basketball as a Native American shows people that natives can ball at the top level of competition.”
“With the gifts I have been given, I try and remain humble and share my gift with other athletes around me. I enjoy teaching younger athletes the game of basketball, especially my siblings, and how they can improve and always become better,” added Mya.
“A big part of becoming a successful student-athlete is also having the discipline to do better in school,” said Mya. “In order to play basketball, I have to maintain good grades and attendance.”
“The main people that positively influenced me were my parents and my siblings,” said Mya. “My parents were able to guide me and teach me when it was tough and having their support meant so much to me. My two siblings also influenced me because they need someone to look up to, someone who is successful and never gives up. I’m being that person for them and will push them to work harder, especially when they are faced with obstacles in life and through athletics.”
“Over the years, I have had many mentors that helped me get where I am today,” said Mya. The first mentor that started with me is my dad, Jeffery Johnson. He started training me when I was four years old. He trained me, pushed me, talked basketball with me, and made sure that I was always improving and always learning as I got older.”
Jeffrey Johnson commented: “Being Kalayna’s father and a coach of her for quite some time, I would always tell her to practice her patience and help her teammates get to where she is mentally, if not, than close enough to be able to compete with top talent. She would always take time during free throws, timeouts and dead balls to pull her teammates aside and explain things. During timeouts and car rides home, she would always let me know what the team was struggling with and what she felt would be the right adjustment. So I challenged her to channel her inner coach, because I would explain to her that hearing certain coaching points from a coach is different than hearing it from a teammate.”
“Since she’s embraced that concept, coaches feel they can use her in that sense. She definitely has become an extension of the coach on the floor. When I had my younger fifth to eighth grade teams, she would sit the bench with me and I could catch moments where she’d be talking to the kids and explaining situations, offensive and defensive sets and adjustments that they could do or use as the games went along,” added Jeffrey.
“During her freshman season, she dealt with a lot of scrutiny coming in with some hype surrounding her by the coaching staff as a starting guard,” said Jeffrey. “The easiest solution for the staff was to put her on an alternating start schedule with a fellow freshman guard. The whole season was marred by upperclassman egos and selfishness.”
“As the season progressed she slowly began to take the reign of everything on both ends of the floor. She began running the point guard position effectively and was able to run offensive sets and understood the schemes. Defensively she began accepting the assignments night in and night out guarding some of the best talent AZ girls basketball had,” added Jeffrey.
“As the season winded down right before state playoffs, four upperclassmen quit in hopes to prove a point to the head coach that they needed them,” said Jeffrey. “My conversation to Mya was it’s an opportunity to prove what you’re really capable of doing and that selfishness should not stop you from going out and giving your best, leave it all on the floor and trust that your team is ready.”
“They lost that first round game and it stung for her, so she made a personal goal that she would never want to have that feeling again. She has been hitting the gym since that moment and has not stopped improving her craft and has continued to show she is the alpha,” added Jeffrey.
“Another mentor is my current club coach with Run N Gun, Ephraim Sloan,” said Mya. “He has worked with me since freshman year in high school. We started training and conditioning, from early morning workouts to late night training, working on moves, my defense, and shooting techniques. He pushed me to always be a better version of myself.”
“I’ve known Mya for several years, witnessing her development as player from afar as she grew up playing in youth tournaments and leagues in elementary and middle school,” said Ephraim Sloan. “It wasn’t until she was in seventh or eighth grade when I first asked her to start playing with my varsity girls’ team occasionally. By that time I was in my second year of coaching and right away I knew she was going to become a great player.”
“My team that year was heavy with older athletes, a few who were standouts for their own respective high schools as well and would go on to play at the collegiate level. For as long as I’ve known Mya, she was always one to play up into a higher division. Her being in eighth grade at the time, didn’t affect her confidence or ability to score and compete with some of the best players in the Phoenix area. On several occasions, she was given the MVP or All Tournament award, usually as the youngest on the team,” added Ephraim.
“As a senior, she is one of the best players in the start of Arizona,” said Ephraim. “This is a testament to all the hard work and countless hours she has spent in the gym and weight room over the years.”
“Each year, coaching her and coaching against her, her skill continued to hit new heights. There was normally something new she added to her game or improved on that continued to widen the gap between her and the competition,” added Ephraim.
“Her leadership has improved so much over the past year or so,” said Ephraim. “Early on, she played with seasoned older girls who were vocal and now she is the older seasoned player who is taking on the leadership role, not only by her play but vocally as well. I’ve seen great strides in her leadership ability, holding her teammates accountable as well providing direction for them in the game. She has been showing she can do more than just score.”
“A last mentor that needs a lot of credit is Ron Campton,” said Mya. “Ron has been my coach since I was in elementary and joined his club team, Lady Wolfpack. Ever since that first night of practice, he knew what I was capable of becoming in the future and continued to work with me ever since. Now he was my high school coach and I will forever be thankful that I played for him again one last time.”
“Mya was a senior leader and team captain for our Westwood HS Lady Warriors program,” said Ron Campton. “She constantly worked to help the younger players in our program better understand the game and how we played within our program. She took turns with our other leaders running open gym sessions throughout our offseason and led by example in the weight room. Mya was always available for questions when our younger players needed any help or guidance.”
“The summer between Mya’s sophomore and junior seasons was one of the biggest changes I saw in her as a player. I’d known since summer of her eighth grade year that she was going to be a very high level high school player with potential to play beyond high school,” added Ron.
“She really started to emerge and become more confident over that summer,” said Ron. “Her sophomore year we had some upper classmen who could carry a lot of the workload in our program. That summer you could sense the shift in Mya and what she knew was coming the upcoming seasons.”
“She was spending more time training her speed and footwork,” said Ron. “She was in the weight room more and she was spending every chance possible working out on the court in some capacity. She knew her role was going to evolve going into her junior season and she dedicated herself to being ready to take it on. She rose to the challenge and put up numbers our program has never seen from an individual player before.”
“Mya managed to take it up another level last offseason going into her senior year. She upped her training and weights workouts and worked harder to perfect the moves that made her so dangerous last season,” added Ron.
“I compete to make a name for myself and my family,” said Mya. “It is difficult to balance my work in the classroom and homework after school, playing on the court, training, researching colleges and emailing recruiters, and spending family time at home, but I find ways to make it work for me.”
“There are only seven days in a week and 24 hours in a day. It may seem like a lot of time but really, it’s not. It requires a lot of discipline to manage my time. I had practices and training five days a week, one tournament, sometimes two almost every weekend, homework for five classes, then squeeze in time to hang out with my family,” added Mya.
“I usually did homework right after school until practice starts, practice for two hours, then I go home and eat,” said Mya. “I would then spend a little more time with my family, maybe some more homework if I have more than usual, sleep, wake up the next morning and repeat the same schedule.”
“My newest obstacle was keeping up with recruiters and college coaches that I could potentially play for,” said Mya. “It was mentally tough for me, to the point where I stayed up very late on school nights thinking, working, checking emails so that the next day I will have one less thing on my list to do. Being able to balance those three things in life will always be tough because there will always be obstacles and I may bump heads with a few people here and there. But in the end it will all be worth it knowing my hard work and dedication has paid off. If there is anything that I would like people to know about me is that I work hard and I train hard to ultimately get where I want to be.”
“I am motivated to do these things on my own because it’s the only way to accomplish my ultimate goal of playing college ball,” said Mya.
Fletcher Brown, head coach at Chandler-Gilbert College (AZ) talked about his new recruit: “Mya is a tremendous shooter and scorer, as proved by her high school record breaking career, but she does so many small things that are important as well. She understands the finer points of the game and has a high basketball IQ. More importantly, she is a great teammate, leader and student. She is the type of student athlete we are very excited to be building a program around.”
Photo Credit: Wendy Monroe
Mya is an awesome player.. we’ve traveled to many gymsgsnes, n tournaments in the past couple of years.. she has brought me tears of proudness and happiness as one of her great grandma. Im glad she chose to play locally, as we will continue to support her.. Great job Mya n the many accomplishments , one of most, is you setting your school record of hitting the 1,000 points award..
Mya is definitely an amazing person! She is a great leader on & off the court. My daughter Alex looks up to her and loves playing ball with her.
What wonderful personal and on court achievements. These learned skills will help her throughout her life in other areas as well. She is self disciplined and motivated. Blessings as you make your journey through the world, Mya. Your parents can’t be anything but very proud of you and your accomplishments.!!