KANSAS CITY, Kan. — On a morning she planned to quit, Reddi Johnson woke up before her alarm. 

She had already decided the night before that wrestling wasn’t for her. It was too hard. Too demanding. Too uncomfortable. She wouldn’t set the alarm. She wouldn’t go back. 

But as she lay staring at the ceiling in her Kansas City bedroom, something shifted. 

“It just came over me that I should pack my wrestling bag,” Johnson said. “So I did.” 

That decision — small and unseen — may have been the most important victory of her young career. 

Today, Johnson is the No. 1 ranked 130-pound wrestler in Class 5A, the reigning regional champion after pinning Pittsburg’s Kaitlyn Allen in Bonner Springs last Saturday, and a fifth-place state finisher from a year ago. She is the CapFed® True Blue® Student of the Week. 

And she is proof that sometimes the biggest transformations start with simply getting out of bed. 

Johnson’s journey to Kansas City-Washington High School wasn’t a straight line. She moved frequently — whether it was from North Dakota, Mississippi or Louisiana — searching for stability along the way. 

“I always hated sports growing up,” Johnson said. “And I wasn’t very good at them either.” 

In Mississippi, a track coach once told her it would be OK if she quit. 

That message stuck. 

When she arrived at Washington, she tried cross country. She wasn’t great at that either. But cross country coach Kimberly Rollins saw something more important than times on a stopwatch. 

“Reddi is a young lady that is goal driven and intentional in her movement,” Rollins said. “Although the overall talent wasn’t there, she reported to practice every morning at 5 a.m. Reddi shows up daily and takes her swing at life.” 
 

Wrestling, though, wasn’t even on Johnson’s radar — until it was. 

A coach suggested she try it. Johnson laughed. The head wrestling coach kept “pestering” her. 

“He just told me to sign up and that it would be awesome,” she said. 

It wasn’t awesome at first. It was exhausting.  

“I was ready to quit wrestling after the first week,” Johnson said. “I told myself, ‘This is hard and I don’t know why I’m doing this.’” 

But she stayed. 

The team was small her sophomore year, filled mostly with seniors who took her under their wing. One senior captain, in particular, became a lifelong friend. 

“We weren’t a very big team,” Johnson said. “But almost everyone was a senior. Even through the struggles, people were there for me. Now as a senior, I get to be there for the people who are younger and not sure if they want to do this. It’s a full-circle moment.” 

Her coach saw her potential before she did. 

“After my very first match, my coach told me that I am going to go to state,” Johnson said. “I thought he was crazy.” 

She kept improving. Kept watching film. Kept getting angry when she lost — not defeated, but determined. 

As a sophomore, she qualified for state. In her first match, a Dodge City opponent cradled her quickly. 

“That’s when I realized just how good people are at this,” she said. 

In her second match, she won. 

“That ignited everything in me.” 

Last season, she finished fifth at state. This year, she hasn’t lost sight of her goal. 

“I want to win state,” Johnson said. “I want to come back to my school and have my name on the gym wall. At the same time, it’s all about growth for me.” 

 

Head wrestling coach Mario Rodriguez believes the medals only tell part of the story. 

“Reddi Johnson is the reason teachers and coaches join this profession,” Rodriguez said. “She has unbelievable character, integrity and leadership for someone her age.” 

Leadership isn’t just something Johnson shows on the mat. 

In Washington’s 200-plus cadet Air Force Junior ROTC program, she has risen to the rank of Cadet Colonel — the highest rank attainable. She leads and mentors 95 freshmen cadets. She serves as President of the AFJROTC Kitty Hawk Honor Society. She earned the Physical Fitness Ribbon with Gold Star, placing in the top 5 percent of cadets nationally. 

“I went from being a regular cadet to being the freshman squadron commander,” Johnson said. “When I got here, I needed to be shaped and put in a leadership position so I could do the same for others.” 

Lt. Col. (Ret) Patrick McCormack, who oversees the AFJROTC program, has watched that growth firsthand. 

“She has become a determined young woman with maturity beyond her years,” McCormack said. “She has the dedication and commitment to hard work to achieve anything she sets her mind to.” 

Johnson thrives in service. ROTC cadets organize 9/11 ceremonies, lead food and clothing drives, and stock the school’s “Cats Closet,” providing essentials for students in need. 

“We just want to be active,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot about developing our community and developing young leaders.” 

Her résumé hardly ends there. She ranks fifth in her class of 265 students with a 4.17 weighted GPA and has earned Honor Roll every quarter of high school. She is President of JAG-K, President of Restorative Justice, a member of National Honor Society, part of Advanced Treble Choir, a Kansas Future Teacher Academy completer, a state representative for the Be Strong organization, a volunteer tutor with Learning Club, and a member of the Kansas City, Kansas Superintendent’s Advisory Board. 

Balancing it all wasn’t easy. 

“It was tough when I first started,” she said. “But you figure out what schedule works for you. There’s a difference between over-working yourself a little bit and overwhelming yourself.” 

Johnson plans to enter the Army National Guard in June and complete basic training before beginning college next spring. She hopes to wrestle at the collegiate level and eventually become an elementary school teacher — and a coach. 

“That’s the dream for me,” she said. 

It’s fitting. The girl who once wanted to quit sports now wants to spend her life guiding young athletes through the same doubts she once faced. 

“I went from hating sports and not being very active in school or my community, to moving here and finding stability,” Johnson said. “The people I’ve met here at Washington and how eager they’ve been to help me grow — I’ve never had that at any other school.” 

On the surface, Reddi Johnson’s story is about rankings, ribbons and titles. 

But beneath it all, it’s about a teenager who chose — over and over again — not to quit.