She’s endured a broken home and changing environments on a regular basis. Now, the senior thrower on the Central Michigan women’s track and field team has everything she wants.

“I came to CMU with no car and $25 to my name,” Johnson said.

Despite hardships, Johnson came to CMU as the first person in her family to go to college.

Growing up on Saginaw’s west side, Whitney’s father was nowhere to be found from the time she was born. The only other guardian, her mother Bethany Hardy, has been in and out of her life after suffering an addiction to crack cocaine.

“My mother would sell everything in the house for drugs. She would take our furniture, video games, our television,” Johnson said. “One time she even took the jewelry right off my neck and told me she would be back later. I knew whenever she said that she wouldn’t be back for months.”

At age 6, Whitney was removed from her home by social services after her neighbors reported that she had been living by herself for close to three months. She was placed in a foster home where she remained for about a year and a half.

“It was hard growing up under those circumstances,” Johnson said. “No one really knew what my home life was like.”

In addition to her mother’s drug use, her situation was made worse by the disturbing path of her siblings. Johnson was the second youngest of 13 children in her family. She has 10 older brothers. Of those brothers, three are in prison serving life terms for murder, two are dead, two she has never met and three live in Saginaw.

One place of refuge in Whitney’s life was with her grandmother, Vera Parks, who took her in after a year and a half in foster care.

“My grandmother is a huge inspiration to me,” Johnson said. “If I become half the women she is, I’m doing great.”

Ultimately, Whitney wanted to be at home and after a couple years with her grandmother, Whitney’s mother got clean and welcomed her back into her home.

But her mother relapsed two years later.

A change in course

By the start of high school, Whitney was bouncing back and forth between her mother and grandmother’s houses and by her junior year she didn’t know where she would be sleeping from night to night.

“Sometimes I would stay at my friends, sometimes my grandma’s, sometimes my coach Sonya Dudley’s house,” Johnson said.

With so many negative things around her in her life, Johnson was in need of a way out, she needed something positive in her life, and that came in the form of athletics.

While attending Saginaw Arthur Hill High School, Johnson was already a two-sport star in volleyball and basketball. That’s when coach Dudley approached her and asked her if she had ever done track and field.

“I was walking down the hallway, and she came up to me and asked me if I was interested in track and field,” Johnson said. “The next day I went to practice and I was pretty good, so she kept me around.”

Little did Dudley or Johnson know, this would be the start of something that would change the course of her life forever.

“When I first saw her, she reminded me of a big teddy bear,” Dudley said. “Because of her stature, she can be intimidating, but she’s a really sweet girl.”

While competing for Arthur Hill, Johnson never lost a regular season track meet. She won two state titles and finished in the top five all four years. She currently holds the discus and shot put records.

“Whitney is a warrior, she’s a survivor,” Dudley said. “I’m so glad that she has become a part of my life. It’s people like her that inspire me to keep doing what I’m doing.”

After her successful high school career, Whitney was recruited by schools throughout the country, including Kent State, Wright State, Michigan State and Army, among others. After multiple visits and deliberation, Johnson settled on CMU largely because she was impressed by the coaching staff and the quality of its track and field facilities.

Struggles continue

As a top recruit, she quickly found a home and became a leader, despite her underclassmen status.

But adversity just wouldn’t leave her alone.

In November 2009, Johnson had knee surgery on her meniscus to repair three holes in her bone. After surgery, Whitney came into the 2010 season knowing that more surgery would be necessary, but put it off until July when she had surgery on the lateral part of that same meniscus.

“I was so mentally frustrated,” Johnson said. “I knew my capabilities and I knew what I could do, but when you have a knee that doesn’t allow you to do these things, you really get down on yourself.

“I thought about quitting, I wanted go home (and) be by myself and cry.”

But after all the adversity that she had faced in the past, there was no way that she was going to let injuries bring her down.

This season, a healthy Johnson has been a major contributor to the women’s team as it strives toward its first Mid-American Conference championship in six years.

This weekend, she will compete in the final indoor meet of her career at the MAC Indoor Championships and is on the brink of breaking the school record in the weight throw set by Charity Sunderman in 2010.

“I’m positive that the things she’s gone through in her life have molded her into who she is today,” said director of track and field Willie Randolph. “All of us go through life lessons, and you either choose to deal with it and make it better or be a statistic, and Whitney has chosen to fight. We’re very proud of her.”

At this weekend’s championships, Johnson will finish her indoor home career and will no doubt do so with the struggles of her past in mind. The challenges she faces on the field this weekend yield in comparison to the ones she has already overcome and will continue to face.

After her career at CMU, Johnson plans to help others who have been in similar situations as herself by starting her own drug rehabilitation center.

“I don’t regret my past,” Johnson said. “I have always believed that the past makes you who you are today. All I can do is learn from it and try and be the best person I can be. I made it out, and I want to show others that they can do the same thing.”