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.
“You have about eight seconds to decide,” Johnson recalled Carroll saying, “or I’m going to take it.”
“It was that great of an opportunity,” Carroll said.
“He said yes. Then we really got to work.”
Johnson didn’t need the full eight seconds to answer, it was an immediate yes. He saw the vision, and he trusted Carroll. It was the right answer.
A relative unknown in prep basketball then, Newman has transformed into a powerhouse as it enters Year 3. They are among the best programs in not just New England, but also the country. They are a disruptor to the traditional model in this space, and represent what the future could look like. And they’re not going away any time soon.
“The wheels are greased, the roads are paved,” Carroll said. “We’re really ready for takeoff here.”
The first partnership
The story of Newman’s rise began, in some ways, at Kimball Union. Michael Schafer was the head of school there, and years ago, he inquired if Carroll was interested in making a move from NMH. Carroll wasn’t, but he enjoyed talking to Schafer and he admired his success at KUA from afar. The seeds were planted.
In 2020, Schafer became the head of school at Newman. Two years later, Carroll left after 21 years at NMH, where he was one of the country’s best coaches and built an exemplary college placement resume. Schafer, naturally, reached out to Carroll about moving to Newman.
Carroll was enticed. A call turned into a visit. Though Newman didn’t have a deep basketball pedigree, he saw its limitless potential. He saw a model that always worried him when he was at NMH, the possibilities of a basketball program at a boarding school in the city, where kids have more access to the world and more opportunities than the previous generation.
Newman, in many ways, offers a unique experience unlike anything other prep schools in the region can. A school with a rich academic tradition, in a location steps away from a collection of the best colleges and universities in the world, in a city where opportunities and connections are available to fit any student’s interests. A basketball program that complements the school’s ideals and mission was a logical and natural next step.
“The idea of being at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere isn’t the same appeal that it once had,” Carroll said. “But the idea of being in a city like Boston, being at a boarding school and playing high-level basketball with all these colleges (around), that’s the evolution in my mind. …
“These kids are independent and are just going to be prepared for not only college, but their life, at a level prep schools can’t deliver on because they’re so isolated. That’s the unique part, these kids are preparing for life every day.”
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Initially, Schafer hoped to make Carroll the head coach of the program. But Carroll didn’t want to jump back into coaching so soon after his resignation. He agreed to be an advisor. He is not employed by the school, but he is essentially a director of the program as he guides the coaches, creates partnership and oversees the operations.
“I call myself the basketball architect,” Carroll said.
More importantly, Carroll and Schafer were aligned. Their beliefs matched. They wanted to build a basketball program that elevated the school, with players that fit in as the best version of the school, not one that operated separately as its own entity. They wanted it to be the fabric of the school’s culture for years to come.
Schafer and Carroll believed in each other to make it happen.
“We had the best coach, best recruiter, best talent developer and best placement person with the deepest relationships at the top of schools, and we had this unbelievable urban school with a global reach,” Schafer said. “It was a match made in heaven.”
Growing pains
One of Carroll’s first priorities was putting Newman on the map – literally. They put up a social media post to show how close Newman was to notable locations and landmarks around Boston, like Harvard, MIT and Fenway Park.
Not many people knew much about Newman or that they even had basketball. The program previously competed in NEPSAC Class D, which is the sixth division in the league. Later that summer, Newman moved to Class AAA, the highest level. Above all, it was crucial to find the right coach for this job.
Johnson is a former basketball and baseball player at Tulane, where he was a graduate manager before becoming an assistant for Carroll at NMH. When Carroll resigned, they stayed connected. Carroll had mentioned the Newman possibility, so it wasn’t a total surprise when he called Johnson to offer him the job.
Johnson was 26 and never held a head-coaching job. But he watched closely how Carroll operated his program at NMH, and he knew he’d be the perfect mentor to learn how to be a good head coach. It was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
“I knew he was the best to do it,” Johnson said.
Though Carroll only worked with him for two years, he was extremely impressed. He used to rave about Johnson to his players at NMH, and now at Newman, too.
“Ten years from now, this is going to be someone significant. I still believe that,” Carroll said. “This is a star in our industry.
“I believed in him and I was going to be with him all the way through. My commitment to him was to make him as good of a head coach as he possibly could.”
The transition was hectic. Newman had no players, and personally for Johnson, he officially took the job four days before his wedding. He had to cancel his honeymoon. He got married on June 4, and started on June 6. He recruited for the rest of the summer.
“It was insane,” Johnson said.
That summer, it was all hands on deck. Little by little, they assembled a team and built the foundation. It took some time and persistence, but recruits and their families were receptive to the vision, the idea of living in a city and the possibilities that came with that. Johnson emphasized the entire package Newman offered and how Boston was the perfect place for it. The city is safer than other major cities, and the close proximity to Logan Airport was a benefit for recruiting that created a competitive advantage.
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The critical piece was Carroll. Johnson was inexperienced, and the program didn’t have a rich history. But Carroll’s reputation, his record in college placement and wealth of connections were deal-sealers.
The first commit was Will Larson, whose brother played for Carroll at NMH. Then came Luka Toews, who’s now at Boston College. Suddenly, Johnson could tell recruits on the line that they had a point guard with Division 1 offers.
“That’s when it was like, ‘This is happening,’” Johnson said.
By August, they had recruited 18 players. Carroll had created relationships with schools and colleges in the area, locked down facilities and made partnerships. They partnered with New Balance, which was intentional because they wanted everything they did to be about Boston.
The first season was certainly full of growing pains with a roster that included a significant number of juniors and underclassmen. Newman went 14-24, though they showed great promise with some big wins, including at Brewster.
“Every day was a first,” Johnson said. “I’ve never done it before.”
Things like running a practice were new. Managing time and being more efficient with everyday tasks was a process. But Carroll kept Johnson steady, and provided great support and mentorship. They didn’t expect overnight success.
“A lot of it was trial by fire in terms of him figuring out who he was as a coach,” Carroll said.
But then success still came relatively quickly. In June 2023, about a year after they started, Johnson noticed a shift. They performed well at the NEPSAC Scholastic showcase, with about 10 players on their roster with Division 1 potential. They had made a leap. He could tell the perception had changed.
“Year 1, it was this curiosity,” Johnson said. “What’s this Newman? What are they doing over there? Oh, they’re OK. Year 2, we had arrived.”
Newman backed it up last season, going 26-12 as it established itself as one of the best teams in New England and nationally. The juniors became seniors, Johnson was more comfortable and everything went to a higher level.
Carroll’s influence has been instrumental. Johnson has leaned on him in almost every facet of the job. The nuances of coaching, like never putting a kid down without having a plan to pick him up. The details of every day and the efficiency required. The example that he sets of the hunger and drive it takes to achieve greatness.
Johnson said the early success has validated many of the things that they’re trying to teach their players about chasing dreams and hard work. It’s almost hard to believe that the program, in its current iteration, is still less than 30 months old.
“When I started feeling the momentum, I was like, ‘Yeah we’re good,’” Johnson said. “This is not going anywhere but up and it’s happening fast.”
Carroll said it would be misleading to say he’s surprised by how quickly the program has experienced success. But he didn’t fully know until he started this project how much weight he had, and how much his past success would translate.
“Doing what we did at one place for a long time with the success we had, part of what you think is the secret sauce is the place, and you wonder if it’s transferable,” Carroll said. “And then we learned what we did was 100 percent transferrable.”
Here to stay
Newman’s basketball program is only growing. In August, it announced the addition of a girls team. Sam Doner, who previously coached the Newton South girls is the head coach. Celtics broadcaster and former NBA player Brian Scalabrine is an assistant. His daughter, Elliana Scalabrine, is one of several high-level transfers joining the team for its first season.
Carroll said the plan all along was to have a girls program. They wanted the boys team to provide a blueprint to follow first, and there was momentum to pull the trigger this summer. They also wanted a facility that both programs could call home, and they found that.
After the boys played at Simmons College for the first two seasons, Newman made a partnership this summer with the Track at New Balance, the state-of-the-art athletic facility in Brighton, across the street from the Celtics practice facility. Both the boys and girls will practice and play all of their home games there.
“The bottom line is our kids knew their home court was someone else’s (at Simmons), and I think that has an impact,” Carroll said. “It’s tough to defend someone else’s space. It was important for us to find a home court.
“It’s a great partnership. I just don’t know a better facility in New England outside of TD Garden that these kids could play in. It gives them such pride.”
Newman doesn’t know exactly what the future holds, but it’s certainly bright. They’re keeping an open mind, and pushing everything they can forward.
“We’re not satisfied with what we’re doing at all,” Johnson said. “We want to be the best program in the country for kids who want this really high-end experience, holistic experience from leadership, toughness, resiliency, player development and the academic component that the Newman School has, being in this unbelievable city. …
“We want to be the best representation of what the school embodies, which is chasing excellence in something you’re passionate about.”
They’re not slowing down any time soon. Newman is here to stay.
“This is the Newman program forever,” Carroll said. “I think Newman has the opportunity to be a place where independent kids can go to school, receive a high-end education, can live and explore and have access to a city at the highest level and have a world-class basketball program. I think it really does disrupt and give a whole new view on what it means to be a teenager at a prep school. It really does disrupt the model.”
