Fred Johnson was a life-long athlete, starting as a caddie at age 12 at Indian Trails Golf Course in Grand Rapids, playing four sports at Grandville High School, winning an NCAA long jump national championship in track and field at Michigan State University and playing golf well into his 80s.
He won a state championship in the 100-yard dash and the long jump as a senior in high school and then volunteered for active duty with the Marines during World War II in 1943.
Following the war, he enrolled at Michigan State where he won the indoor NCAA Championship in the long jump in 1949 and earned All-American honors in the low hurdles and long jump. He was also a six-time IC4A (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) champion with five wins in the long jump and one in the 220-yard low hurdles and shared the world record in the 65-yard low hurdles. Johnson set the MSU school record in long jump at 25 feet, 4¾ inches or 7.74 meters in 1948, a record that remained intact 72 years later in 2020. He set or tied eight varsity track records in his Spartan career and took part twice in the Olympic Trials. He was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993.
Johnson graduated from Michigan State in 1950 with a degree in adult and continuing education, and later earned his master's degree in education from MSU.
Following his undergraduate time at MSU he continued in athletics as an official in high school football and basketball throughout West Michigan for 23 years.
In the 1950s and 60s he owned Johnson’s Spring Service in Wyoming, and in the 70s he owned Kimberly Academy of Cosmetology. He also taught school, worked at General Motors and in local real-estate and ultimately retired from the Michigan Department of Education where he worked in Adult and Continuing Education services.
He was a Monford Point Marine, which were the first African-Americans in the United States Marine Corps. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the U.S. Congress as part of the Monford Point Marines, who were deemed victims of prejudicial treatment. He died in May of 2012, just weeks before the official medal ceremony in Washington D.C. He was 87, one day shy of his 88th birthday.