Vinnie Johnson

By Jordan Jensen
Love of Sports Correspondent

Players, or nicknames for that matter, just aren’t made the way that they used to be.

Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson is a shining example of that. For 15 seasons, the NBA was in fear of that call to the bench that brought Johnson out on to the floor for what always seemed to be an instant impact.

Johnson’s best days came as a member of the Detroit Pistons from 1982-1991, where he was a key component to their back-to-back NBA championships in 1989 and ‘90.  During the late 1980s, when the Celtics and Pistons were battling for Eastern Conference supremacy, Celtics guard Danny Ainge branded Johnson “The Microwave” because of his ability to score buckets in a very short amount of time.
Johnson wore jersey #15 as a tribute to another great player with another great nickname, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe. He had looked up to Monroe and wore his number for the length of his playing days.

Like all player’s careers do, Johnson’s career came to an end following the 1992 season and a two-year span playing for the Spurs. But unlike most players, he didn’t just retire and fade to obscurity. He used his fame to make a difference.

In 1995, Johnson founded The Piston Group, an automotive components production company in an inner-city area of Detroit known as an Empowerment Zone. An Empowerment Zone is an urban area where businesses receive federal grant money for re-locating or opening within the zone’s boundaries in an effort to improve the quality of life for the residents within that area.

In 1994, the city of Detroit received $100 million in government money to re-vitalize the inner-cities’ economy. Local lending institutions and corporations added $1 billion more. As of today, the Empowerment Zone’s surpassed those amounts by $400 million, an accomplishment that couldn’t have been completed without the vision of Johnson.

Johnson’s original goals were to give back to Detroit by creating jobs for the people of Detroit and to run his own successful company, two goals that he achieved long ago.  In 2005, the Piston Group was honored by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Inc. Magazine as a recipient of the Inner City 100 Award, a national competition to find and rank fast-growing companies in inner-cities across America.

In addition, the Piston Group was the No. 1 minority-owned company and ranked No. 5 nationally out of the 4,500 nominated companies. To date, Johnson’s created over 500 new jobs for people in the Empowerment Zone, with plans for many more in the future.

The Microwave’s legacy in the NBA is a very well known story. Most people have heard of the nickname, and anybody old enough remembers Johnson by the “instant heat” he displayed throughout his great career. He scored 14 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the 1990 NBA Finals, including the game-winner with no time left on the clock to put the Portland Trailblazers away.

There are several great Microwave stories to be told, but the best story is still being written in a Detroit neighborhood where Johnson’s making a big difference.