These coaches are changing lives at Imhotep Charter and Neumann Goretti through football

It’s that time of year again when their hoarse voices are more raw than usual and their baggy eyes only shut for a handful of hours a night. Albie Crosby and Devon Johnson don’t care. They pour their essence into what they do. Both men are much more than high school football coaches. They’re teachers, counselors, psychologists, and, to many of their players, guardians. Both got pulled into coaching through former high school teammates. Both view their players as their children. Both do countless unseen tasks. Both have attended too many funerals of players killed by senseless violence.

Both often are unappreciated.

And this weekend, they’re both playing for state championships.

Johnson, 35, never aspired to be a football coach. Now he directs the premier Philadelphia Public League powerhouse, Imhotep Charter, a brown building with no name behind a cyclone fence topped by coiled barbed wire at the intersection of North Philly’s 21st Street and Godfrey Avenue. Crosby, 53, is the godfather of city coaches, a selfless, caring man who imparts life lessons and football wisdom in his raspy voice. He coaches Neumann Goretti, a traditional basketball stronghold that, under Crosby, is quietly turning out major college football recruits and NFL players.

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At 7 p.m. Friday, Johnson’s Imhotep Charter Panthers (10-2) will play District 7 champion Pine-Richland (12-3) for the Class 5A state title at Chapman Field in Mechanicsburg. This will be Imhotep’s seventh trip to the final (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, and 2022). There aren’t many across the state backing the Panthers to win.

At 1 p.m. Saturday at the same venue, Crosby’s Neumann Goretti Saints (11-3) will make their first state championship appearance, against District 7 champion Belle Vernon (11-2), for the Class 3A state title. There aren’t many across the state backing the Saints to win.

Being underestimated is something Crosby and Johnson are accustomed to and something they both embrace.

Imhotep doesn’t have a practice field. At least not like other schools. The Panthers practice on an overgrown grass field strewn with rocks and shattered glass and without goalposts. Last week’s rains turned their field into a mud puddle, forcing Johnson to find patches of grass on which to practice ahead of the state semifinals. Their goalposts are rooftop antennas and a tall brick chimney.

“We get written off all the time, and it’s frustrating,” said Johnson, a Central High grad who later played for the legendary Bill Zwaan at West Chester, where he earned his graduate degree in sports management. “We’ve won one state title [2015]. We face challenges no other programs face. We get accused of being an all-star team. All-star teams practice on million-dollar turf facilities. We don’t. It doesn’t change our standard. We play every year for a state championship. We still hold a high standard for our players, regardless of what situation they come from. People from the outside looking in, they don’t see our lack of resources. We do a lot with less.

“It’s why I want to win another state title. It forces people to pay attention to what we have going on. I want people to see our young people for who they are, because if they did, they would see the quality young people that we’re producing. I want people to see us in this positive light, and I take it personally when they don’t. It’s why it angers me, the animosity we get. After we lost last year, we got stuff on social media ... saying things like, ‘These undisciplined city kids need to be taught some discipline.’ That comes out every year.”

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Johnson is in his third year as head coach at Imhotep and in his 10th year coaching overall. He has spent the last eight at Imhotep, where he was brought in by Crosby. His father was imprisoned when Johnson was a child. He didn’t see him again until he was in high school. His mother, Tami Johnson, raised her son with an iron fist, so he wouldn’t repeat the mistakes she saw. Devon came from nothing and is a teacher with a graduate degree. He never let outside circumstances define his future.

“That’s life. I learned early on no one is going to feel sorry for you, and my mom made sure of that,” Johnson said. “I want no excuses from my players. My players are blessed to play a game that may hopefully change their lives. It’s what keeps me motivated to come back every year. When you go through adversity your entire life, you either fall and stay down or you get up. We’re a team others look at that can’t win the big one. It’s why winning a state championship means more for my players, carrying on the history of our school, and for their dignity. I use myself as an example to my players that you can never make excuses. I’ve been through what many of them go through.”

After the Panthers lost in last year’s 5A state final to Penn-Trafford in overtime, some of the Imhotep parents verbally accosted Johnson as he and his staff walked off the Hersheypark Stadium field. Johnson’s players have such a bond with him that one player yelled back at a screaming parent, “Hey, Mom, knock it off!”

Crosby can’t stop. He’s “Albie the Hedgehog.” He’s been coaching for 23 years. This season could be his best. He’s had more talented teams. None have melded together like this year’s team has.

He was the first Philadelphia coach to lead a Public League team to a state championship game (2013 with Imhotep). He was the first to lead a Public League team to a state title (2015 with Imhotep), and now he’s the first Philadelphia-area coach to bring a Public League team and a Philadelphia Catholic League team to a state championship game. He works three jobs and still manages to commit time to not only his Neumann Goretti players, but also, through his national connections, to other players in the area.

When former Imhotep star Isheem Young was arrested and charged with robbing a Wawa in 2017, it was Crosby who arranged an attorney for him. Young’s now playing for Mississippi and probably NFL-bound. When a major college coach calls Crosby about an area player, whether it’s his player or not, he will spend countless hours on the phone talking up the player. When he was at Imhotep, his day would start at 4 a.m. and not wrap up until 9 p.m. At Neumann Goretti, he has worked out a system to make sure every player gets home safe each night, meaning more time on the phone.

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Byron Barnes, 46, has been an assistant coach under Crosby for the last six years. He often shakes his head in disbelief at the exhaustive work Crosby does.

“Albie is on every day,” Barnes said, laughing. “He throws all he has into everything. Albie is passionate about every player in the city of Philadelphia, and it’s something a lot of people don’t see. He doesn’t do it for the recognition; he does it from the heart. If you advertise what you do, you’re not doing it for the right reasons. I sit there and I listen to him talking to college coaches, and he’s talking about every kid in the city. It’s one of the things I admire about him. Then you see the impact he’s had on area coaches.

“We call Albie ‘the John Chaney of high school football.’ He teaches these kids life lessons and can reel off the one-liners, a lot like Coach Chaney did [at Temple]. Coach Chaney talked to everybody, and that’s Albie. If any college coach needs something in the tri-state area, they call Albie. There are numerous kids in this area that are playing college football because of him. He’s a big proponent of Philadelphia football. A lot of coaches in the city call Albie for advice.”

When Johnson was confronted by parents after last year’s state title game, Barnes said, he called Crosby for support.

“It’s who I am. It’s the way I was raised,” said Crosby, a 1988 West Catholic grad who earned a criminal justice degree from Virginia Union, and who recently lost his mother, Brenda Brown, after a long battle with illness. “I love the game and I love people.”

After college, Crosby was a football official for seven years. One time attending a West Catholic basketball game, he bumped into former West teammate Brian Fluck, who asked Crosby to join his staff as the Burrs’ running backs coach. Crosby coached Curtis Brinkley, who went on to play at Syracuse and in the NFL.

“I just fell in love with coaching,” said Crosby, who admits he is now better at delegating his time between coaching and family obligations. “I grew up in West Philly, and my very first football coach was Leroy Keyes [the No. 3 overall pick in the 1969 draft by the Eagles]. I learned the game from him. Coach Keyes became like a second father to me. Wally Henry is like an uncle to me. Reggie Wilkes, another former Eagle, was another mentor to me. I feel extremely blessed for where I am. I have a platform people see, but there are things that coaches do that aren’t seen, a guy like Ron Flowers and what he does, coaching Olney Charter, and then he’ll leave after that and coach a little league team, the Blackhawks. That’s dedication you don’t see. You have what Dev is doing at Imhotep and what Eric Clark does at Northeast.

“We’re the ones who see our young people have trust issues. They run across people who cut through their lives and they’re out. They give them promises and don’t see it through. I have special relationships with my kids. Trust is important to me. If they give you their trust, you have to see it through.”

In the state semifinals, Crosby’s Saints beat Wyomissing Area, 20-17, on a 44-yard pass from Mekhi Wharton to Qaasim Major with 8 seconds left. The play they called Dakota? Crosby literally drew up on the sideline. The victory happened to fall on Dec. 3, Crosby’s mother’s birthday. She would have been 74.

Because of the rain on Saturday, his phone had water damage. Later that evening, when the phone began functioning properly, Crosby’s phone blew up with text messages from former players, fellow coaches, and others in the Philadelphia football community.

Crosby sat down in his kitchen for two hours returning each message.