Jennifer Johnson
2007
Jennifer was born in Mandeville, Jamaica, West Indies. At the age of five, she was stricken with polio. In 1980, she migrated to the United States. A true international athlete, Jennifer originally competed on the Jamaican team in the 1971 Pan American Wheelchair Games and the 1968, 1972, and 1980 Paralympic Games. In 1984, she married Denton Johnson (deceased), a track and field Paralympian. She is the mother of Anthony and grandmother of David and Brianna. She became a U.S. citizen in 1985 and went on to win plenty of hardware for the United States.
Prior to migrating to America, Jennifer met and became friends with Ruth Rosenbaum and Tyler Kaus, members of Team U.S.A. at the 1980 Holland Games. She shared with them that she would be migrating to the U.S.A. later that year in October. They immediately exchanged phone numbers and addresses and told her that she should contact them upon her arrival in the United States. Apart from her immediate family, they were the only other friends she knew.
Of course, Jennifer’s plans upon migrating to the U.S. were to retire from competitive sports, work hard to support herself and her young son. Well, that never happened as planned. With the persuasion of Tyler Kaus, she joined the Burke Silver Bullets at Burke Rehab Hospital, met her husband Denton, made many friends such as Jackie Dilorenzo, Mike LoRusso, Mike Dempsey, Joe and Debbie Quigg, Dave Daniels, Sebastian Defrancesco, and Sharon Brooks, plus a long list of others—and the rest is history.
Jennifer competed in six Paralympic Games on Team USA and three on the Jamaican team. She earned a silver medal at the 1972 Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany on the Jamaican women’s basketball team. Then, as a member of Team USA, she garnered a gold medal in team competition, a silver medal in singles, and a gold in Women’s Open at the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. Jennifer took home a gold medal in Women’s Class 4 singles and a bronze medal in Women’s Team Events at the 1996 competition in Atlanta. She earned a silver medal in singles at the 2003 Paralympic Table Tennis Open in Colorado. Additionally, in Pan American Wheelchair Games competition from 1990 to 2001, Jennifer accumulated seven gold medals and one silver. She also won many international and national competition titles in table tennis. Jennifer was also a Pentathlon winner at the Virginia Games in the 80’s.
Jennifer won numerous other awards, such as The Burke Rehabilitation Hospital Award for Athletic Excellence. She also received the Martha Dilg Award for Athletic Excellence in 1982. Jennifer was named Wheelchair Sports USA’s Athlete of the Year and was inducted into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame.
Jennifer’s contributions to the sport of table tennis were not limited to competition. She served for years as President of the Wheelchair Table Tennis Association and served as a member of the Tri-State Wheelchair Athletic Association’s Board of Directors. Jennifer also served on numerous committees for USA Table Tennis, including the Para High Performance, the Umpires and Referees, and the Grievance Committees. Her contributions to the sport she loved were endless.