By Lily Nussbaum | Staff Writer
As an eager high school journalist, Dr. Torie Johnson came to Baylor with dreams of being the next anchor for Sports Center. Twenty years later, after gaining experience in the Southland Conference and Southeastern Conference, she will be returning home.
Johnson said attending Baylor was initially meant to be a temporary post. Her mother wanted her at Baylor, so naturally, as a “rebellious” teen, she said she wanted the opposite. Although Baylor did not have a broadcast program at the time, when she got to Waco, Johnson said her perception and will had changed altogether.
“I got on that campus, and it was done,” Johnson said. “I met some girls that I’m still friends with now, 20 years later. This is where I’m meant to be.”
Academically, Johnson studied journalism with a minor in telecom production in an effort to get as close to broadcast as possible. With these passions, she said she eagerly sought out “the newspaper office” not even a week after setting foot on campus.
“I walked over [to Castellaw], and I just asked if there was anything I could do,” Johnson said. “I was that person.”
Every afternoon during her first semester freshman year, she said her friends would find her tucked away in The Baylor Lariat newsroom with a pair of scissors, clipping out articles from print editions and filing them away as the librarian.
After completing her first journalism courses, she said she was hired as a staff writer. Her junior year, she moved up into the sports editor position. Despite calling herself “relatively uncoordinated,” Johnson said she loved sports, and the sports editor position was something she knew she wanted.
Johnson said she grew up watching the Dallas Cowboys on her television every Sunday afternoon after attending church with her dad. Every time a flag was thrown or a fourth down was called, she said she would ask her dad questions.
“That’s kind of how I learned, and it just evolved from there,” Johnson said. “I think part of it is just I couldn’t do it myself very well, and so it was a way for me to be connected through sort of the media side.”
Even with a love for and background in sports, Johnson said she secretly enjoys classic musicals. During her time as an editor, the faculty adviser of The Baylor Lariat took the staff to New York, where she saw “The Phantom of the Opera.”
“That kind of got the ball rolling, and so I’ve seen a number of those,” Johnson said. “I can appreciate a good musical or a bad one … just not as much.”
Her senior year, Johnson assumed the role of editor-in-chief, making her the first Black female editor-in-chief of The Baylor Lariat. Throughout all her years at the student-run newspaper, she said she learned the basics of listening, synthesizing information, communicating and leading her peers.
“I was there basically from my first day on campus until my last day on campus,” Johnson said. “It was woven into my experience.”
Johnson also said the skills she learned in the newsroom transferred to her current role as the SEC’s associate commissioner for academic relations.
“I listen and interact with any number of individuals, and part of my responsibility is to understand what they’re saying and codify that in a way that captures accurately what their discussion is,” Johnson said. “I really do credit Baylor for allowing me the opportunity to do that as a journalist [and] as a student.”
Johnson will be returning on Nov. 28 to assume the role of associate vice president for strategic communications and initiatives. According to a Baylor press release, she will lead tasks to elevate Baylor’s status as a distinguished Christian research university.
“She is incredibly respected not only within intercollegiate athletics but among presidents, chancellors and provosts within the SEC and across the country,” Jason Cook, vice president for marketing and communications and chief marketing officer, said. “We look forward to working with Dr. Johnson in expanding Baylor’s brand and influence.”
While coming back to Waco feels like going back to her undergraduate college days, Johnson said “it feels like a natural progression” to be just a few miles down the road from her parents and back where her career started.
“I know what Baylor has been from my time as an undergraduate student, and I am thrilled to contribute to what Baylor will become under President Linda Livingstone’s steady and visionary leadership,” Johnson said.
