Tucked in the Back Bay on Marlborough Street, the Newman School is the only NEPSAC boarding school in Boston. (Getty Images)
Jackson Johnson had eight seconds to answer the question.
The call came from John Carroll in May 2022, and somewhat out of the blue. The question was straightforward, but he didn’t have much time to think about it.
“Do you want to be the head coach at the Newman School?” Carroll asked.
Carroll, the former legendary head coach at Northfield Mount Hermon, had just resigned there and was exploring his next chapter. Newman, a boarding school nestled in the Back Bay of Boston, came calling with a unique opportunity to lead its basketball vision. Carroll agreed to become an advisor, and he was charged with finding the head coach. He targeted Johnson, a young up-and-coming coach who had been his assistant at NMH the prior two seasons.
