Gary “Cat” Johnson, a former pro basketball player who returned to his hometown of Joplin, Missouri, to briefly open a Southern-cooking restaurant on Route 66, died Tuesday. He was 59.
A friend of Cat Johnson’s Taste of the South page on Facebook posted this message late Tuesday:
According to the Joplin Globe, Johnson led Memorial High School to two titles as a point guard and nearly a third:
The 5-foot-10 Johnson led the Eagles to three consecutive appearances in the Class 3A state championship game. His sophomore year Memorial lost to St. Joseph Lafayette 87-82, but the Eagles won the next two years by beating Charleston 80-73 and McKinley 97-69. The Eagles went 62-1 during Johnson’s junior and senior seasons.
Johnson graduated as Memorial’s single-game, single-season and career scoring leader as well as the Class 3A single-game and tournament scoring leader. […]
Johnson signed with Oral Roberts University. Johnson totaled 1,059 points and 481 assists with the Titans and was named to the ORU Hall of Fame in 2008. […]
Johnson was drafted in the ninth round by the New Jersey Nets of the NBA and played professionally in England for eight years.
Here’s a story about Johnson from KOAM-TV:
Here’s another video segment from a local TV station:
Johnson was inducted into the Joplin Sports Authority Hall of Fame in 2001.
He owned Cat Johnson Auto Sales in the 1500 block of Broadway (aka Route 66) in Joplin for years, then opened Cat Johnson’s Taste of the South in August 2018 in the same block.
The restaurant closed a few months later, reportedly because of his mounting health problems.