Tyron Johnson (Blois): “I come from Vacherie, one of the poorest places in the United States”

It’s not every day that a French basketball player has the right to an article on the Le Monde site. A fortiori an American from Pro B. Tyren Johnson (2.01 m, 33 years old) from Blois can put this on his already rich track record including a Pro B MVP trophy, and who has just obtained accession with a club with which he has been unfailingly loyal since 2017.

We learn more about the childhood of the American who was not golden, far from it, he who grew up in Louisiana raised by his mother, as well as his eight brothers and sisters, and who tied contact later with his father.

“He was a cleaning man,” he says. Now he essentially lives off federal aid. Vacherie is one of the poorest places in the United States. It had three slave plantations. Today, the locals have retained a slave mentality, passed down from previous generations. They stay here and accept their fate, poverty, violence… It’s the jungle over there, man. »

He also recounts how he began to earn a living:

“I have always been talented. I never doubted my life because I was rich very early. At 11, by mowing lawns, cleaning up to fifteen cars a day at $20 each, I could earn $2,000 a month. It’s when people think I’m not strong enough that I feel like a failure. »

Photo: ADA Blois