DULUTH — Late Thursday afternoon, Duluth Denfeld boys basketball coach Phill Homere was running youth tryouts at Lincoln Park Middle School.
Earlier that day, Duluth Marshall coach C.J. Osuchukwu reached out and said Chloe Johnson, the Hilltoppers standout and 2025 News Tribune All-Area Player of the Year, had some workout gear and shoes the kids could take home.
Basketball gear, particularly shoes, is never in short supply at the Johnson house. The rising high school sophomore is one of the top basketball prospects in the U.S. Invites to development camps and college visits come with tons of gear.
At a recent camp in California, Chloe Johnson received 14 new pairs of shoes — so many they had to be shipped back to Minnesota.
Contributed / Heather Johnson
Recently, Johnson was invited to a Nike basketball camp and the
, a camp for the top 30 prospects in the country, Johnson’s mother, Heather Johnson, said and she returned home with 14 new pairs of shoes.
“It was so many we had to ship them back,” Heather Johnson said.
Johnson also made visits to USC and UCLA. The Bruins already have a Hilltopper veteran —
2021 Player of the Year Gianna Kneepkens
. Kneepkens will make her debut with UCLA this fall after transferring from Utah.
Duluth Marshall’s Chloe Johnson, left, poses with former Hilltopper great and current UCLA Bruin Gianna Kneepkens during a recent visit to campus.
Contributed / Heather Johnson
New basketball shoes cost anywhere from $150 to $200 — or more — and dozens of shoes, sized 9.5 to 10.5, are just what a youth basketball program ordered.
But to get to check them out with a legitimate basketball star? That’s something else.
“Personally, I think it’s awesome she’s giving back to kids in the community,” Homere said. “But it was great to see their faces light up when I told them Chloe was out there.”
Friday afternoon, Homere was back running tryouts at Lincoln Park and Johnson stopped by to drop off a few more things. He even posted on social media with sizes and other specifics.
A new player for the Duluth Denfeld youth program tries on a pair of shoes donated by Duluth Marshall sophomore Chloe Johnson Friday at Lincoln Park Middle School in Duluth.
Jamey Malcomb / Duluth Media Group
Several boys were already wearing some of the shoes they got the day before and came out to see if there were any more shoes or shirts they could grab before the weekend and Johnson couldn’t be happier.
“Obviously, I’ve been blessed through basketball,” she said. “I get a lot of stuff from the camps I got to and with everything I get, I want to give back what I can. I know a lot of people aren’t in the same situation as me and it’s cool to help them out.”
Jamey Malcomb has a been high school sports reporter for the Duluth News Tribune since October 2021. He spent the previous six years covering news and sports for the Lake County News-Chronicle in Two Harbors and the Cloquet Pine Journal. He graduated from the George Washington University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in history and literature and also holds a master’s degree in secondary English education from George Mason University.