Joe Johns (2003) - Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame

Joe Johns

Induction:
2003
Class:
1979

Few people made more of their Marshall experience than Joe Johns, who not only was an honors student and champion athlete, but also an accomplished theater performer. Marshall won the recruiting battle for the Ohio state discus champion from Columbus, but gained much more than a track and field star. Johns was a four-time first team All-Southern Conference honoree, winning league championships twice in the shot put and taking first and second place finishes in the discus. He also starred in several stage productions while at Marshall and was honored as one of the top performers at the prestigious American College Theater Festival in South Carolina in 1978. After graduating from Marshall with a political science degree, Johns chose a career in television news over acting and has had a distinguished career as a national reporter for NBC, where he served as the network’s chief Capitol Hill correspondent, and then at CNN, where he became that network’s senior Washington correspondent. Johns was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003.