They got their start in first grade.
First grade?
Lindsey Yamasaki’s family has the video to prove it. “I was such a ball hog,” says the 6-foot-1 forward/guard. “I would pass the ball, run real fast, yell ‘Ball!’ and get it right back. Then dribble to the corner, throw it, run and get it again. It was ridiculous.”
Teyo Johnson’s first-grade basketball coach used to guard him in scrimmages. “Other kids didn’t want to play against me,” says the 6-foot-7 forward and wide receiver.
Both athletes tried every sport in sight as youngsters—including soccer and gymnastics for Yamasaki and baseball for Johnson, who threw a 90-mph fastball as a high school pitcher. But come college recruiting days, they had to narrow their passions to two.
At Stanford, Yamasaki and Johnson succeed past legends who have played multiple varsity sports—among them football and basketball player Ernie Nevers, ’26, football and baseball players John Elway, ’83, and Mark Marquess, ’69 (now Stanford’s baseball coach), and football player and decathlete Bob Mathias, ’53. More recently, such athletes as Kristin Folkl, ’98 (volleyball and basketball), and Chad Hutchinson, ’99 (football and baseball), also have taken the two-sport challenge.
“The notion that student-athletes can achieve at the highest level in the classroom and in one or two intercollegiate sports has been and will continue to be a philosophy of Stanford athletics,” says athletics director Ted Leland, PhD ’83. Time management is one factor in a successful equation, he adds, and then there’s the physical aspect: “When you have worked out in one sport for several months, it takes some time to get back into shape for the other sport.”
There wasn’t much time for Johnson to do that last December, when Stanford’s Seattle Bowl appearance extended the football season and he found himself hurtling between morning football meetings, lunch-hour basketball films, afternoon football practice and evening basketball games. Fortunately, the sophomore sometimes thinks hoops when he’s getting ready to catch a pass: “It’s a lot like watching as a shot goes up, reading how it’s going to go off the rim and making sure you position yourself.” And his coaches, he says, support his desire to play on both teams. “I think they have a blast,” he says. “Being able to watch one of their players on another team makes them feel more attached to that team. It’s a cool situation. No tension.”
Johnson averaged 51 yards a game and scored seven touchdowns last season, in part because he towered over most cornerbacks and could jump up to grab lob passes—a.k.a. “Teyo toss-ups”—from the quarterback. On the basketball court, his presence as an outside shooter and in the post position helped propel the Cardinal to a 15-6 record (8-4 Pac-10) as of mid-February.
A senior majoring in sociology, Yamasaki played both volleyball and basketball her sophomore year but has focused on basketball since then. As the No. 2-ranked Cardinal (24-1, 14-0 Pac-10) headed into the final stretch of conference play, she was averaging almost five rebounds a game and had earned fifth place in the school record book for 3-pointers. Add that to the gold medal she won at last summer’s World University Games in Beijing and the fact that she is starting full time this year, and Yamasaki appears to be having more fun than ever on the court.
Looking back at the year she played volleyball, Yamasaki says the questioning she got from her basketball teammates was pretty entertaining. “They were like, ‘Do you guys ever sweat?’ And, ‘Why do you wear bows and spandex, and cheer when you screw up?’”
It’s true, Yamasaki says, that there is more time to smile in volleyball. “You have those five seconds [after a point] to cheer about it and then refocus. Whereas in basketball, you have to play through your mistakes, and there’s no way that play is going to stop for you.”
There are, however, some skills she carried over from her volleyball days: “Yes, I did every single girl’s hair on the basketball team last season. And I make locker signs, too—just like I used to for my volleyball team members.” No sweat.
