25th Anniversary Rae Burick Women in Sports Award

• Congratulations to 2012 Rae Burick Women in Sports Award winner, Elise “Peanut” Johnson!

   

  

  2012 Winner Elise "Peanut" Johnson, Oakwood H.S.

  For the first time in the 25-year history of the Rae Burick Women In Sports Award, the winner almost didn’t make the ceremony.

  It took some scrambling, but Oakwood High School field hockey player Elise “Peanut” Johnson was on hand Sunday at the Dayton Convention Center to receive a handmade trophy given to the outstanding female athlete in the Miami Valley.

  Johnson led the state’s field hockey playing schools in scoring last fall with 35 goals and five assists. She was a three-time first-team All-Ohio player, earned All-American honors and a tryout with the the United States Women’s Field Hockey Association Under-19 national team. The roster of the national team will be released later this month.

  She was one of the nation’s top 20 field hockey recruits for the class of 2012 and will attend Ohio State. In addition to the trophy, Johnson — who has a 3.5 grade point average — received a $2,000 scholarship. The four runners-up each received a plaque and $750 scholarships.

  The runners-up were Carroll’s Kelley Austria, the state Division II girls basketball player of the year; Tammy Berger of Versailles — the top Division III distance runner in the state; Fairmont’s Natalie Rohr, a three-time All-Ohio and All-American swimmer and Ellise Sharpe, an All-Ohio basketball and soccer player from Tippecanoe.

  A total of 44 schools from throughout the Miami Valley nominated girls for the award which is based on athletic achievement, academic accomplishments and community involvement.

  “I thought it was an award for girls just around Dayton,” said Johnson. “Then I got up on stage and saw all the girls and all the people (700 in attendance) and realized how big this really is. I’m glad I was here for the ceremony.”

  Johnson had been at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago over the weekend for a U.S. Field Hockey Association training camp for elite players in the Midwest.

  Her mother, Mary, had e-mailed Neil Leffel, communications director for the event, at 
9 p.m. Saturday night saying Johnson probably would not attend due to being at the camp. Leffel immediately got on the phone to tell Mrs. Johnson her daughter had to be there if at all possible because she was the winner. He asked her not to tell her daughter she had won the award, but was a finalist.

  Mrs. Johnson scrambled and found her daughter a Sunday morning flight to Dayton. On her end, Peanut arranged transportation to the airport in plenty of time to catch the flight.

  “When I got the airport, the security people wouldn’t let me on the plane because I didn’t have my ID,” said Peanut. “I left it in my gym bag at camp. They took me into this room and interrogated me for an hour.

  “My mom faxed them a copy of my driver’s license and birth certificate. But it still wasn’t enough. I had to tell them who my neighbors were, where my father (Dr. R. Michael Johnson, who was in Vancouver on business) went to college. All kinds of bizarre questions. I tried to keep my cool, but it was getting frustrating. They finally let me on the flight, but I barely made it.”

  To make matters worse, her mother had a flat tire on the way home from the airport. “It was just crazy the last 24 hours,” said Peanut. “I got home and didn’t have dress picked out or anything. So we scrambled and got here just before the program started. Everyone looks so relieved when they saw me in my seat. Now I know why.”

  The Burick Award is a project of The Kiwanis Club of Dayton with proceeds going to the Dayton Children’s Medical Center.

  —Dave Long, Contributing Writer, Dayton Daily News. May 7, 2012