Tour De J

Longhorn senior All-American Derrick Johnson will share his thoughts as he travels coast-to-coast this week on a national awards tour. Johnson journey began on Sun., Dec. 5 in Charlotte for Monday's Nagurski Trophy (nation's top defensive player) banquet and continues on to Houston for the Lombardi Award (Weds., Dec. 8), Orlando for the Home Depot College Football Awards show (Thu., Dec. 9) and the Butkus Award (nation's top linebacker/Fri., Dec. 10) and finally Newport Beach, Calif. For the inaugural Lott Trophy (nation's top defensive player/Sun., Dec. 12). All totaled, Johnson will cover 6,238 miles during his cross country journey.

Dec. 5-6 | Next»: Yesterday was a tough day to get started. I had to get on a plane to Charlotte for the Nagurski Trophy not knowing the fate of the team. The BCS announcement show was at 4 p.m. and we were landing right about the time they announced whether or not we were in. But when we landed, I got the great news. These individual awards are nice, but getting a BCS bid, that was a great feeling and the highlight of my senior year.

Last night I went to dinner with some of the people from the Charlotte Touchdown Club, which presents the trophy, and the Football Writers Association, which votes on it, along with the other finalists. It was great meeting all of those guys since I've been watching them on the field all year. We had a really good time. None of us know who won, so we had a chance to joke with each other about that.

Today they have a full day planned for us. We got up bright and early for breakfast and then we went to speak to some high school kids about leadership. I really enjoyed having a chance to talk to the kids. I do that a lot in Austin and it's really rewarding to be able to share your experiences and to help them out. We are in such a great position to be role models for kids and I take that very seriously. After spending about an hour and a half with the kids it was off to the awards luncheon. Mark May from ESPN is the emcee tonight. He's someone everyone will recognize from Game Day. I enjoyed meeting him at lunch. After lunch we had a chance to give a little more back in visiting patients at a local children's hospital. The kids really lit up while we were there. That made us all feel great. I probably enjoyed that time more than anything else thus far.

Now it's time to get dressed up in my tux for the banquet. We have a press conference, the banquet and then the award. Hopefully the next time I write, it will be as the Bronko Nagurski Trophy winner.

Cross your fingers.

Hook 'em

D.J.