AUBURN, Ala. — Pastor Carl McKay goes back with the Broome family of Plant City, Fla. So far back, he was there for the earliest inklings of the Broome family.
“I was picking my daughter up from the rec center and out comes John (Broome) and Julie (Murray) holding hands,” McKay said of two people who now share 20 years of marriage and three kids, including one of the best college basketball players in America. “They would have been 13. I said, ‘Y’all, stop holding them hands, you’re too young for that stuff.’
McKay has continued dispensing advice over the years, solicited and unsolicited — like the time he told John that his son Johni clearly was going to be a basketball star and needed to stop wasting time on the football field.
The Broomes have belonged to the congregation at St. Luke Independent Church for McKay’s 20 years there. Two weeks ago, the congregation heard McKay’s story of an interrogation he once received from an especially inquisitive child.
“David and Goliath” was the Sunday school lesson, a classic tale of faith, courage and overcoming enormous odds. But the kid wouldn’t let him off the hook. How could this happen? A guy that big? A guy that small? The small guy winning? How does that make sense? Resourcefulness was the answer, of course, and a prevailing trait along with faith and courage that defined the protagonist.
When McKay revealed to the congregation that the questioner was 9-year-old Johni Broome, smiles and nods greeted the twist. America knows 22-year-old Johni Broome as a national player of the year candidate who stars for the top-ranked Auburn Tigers, but Plant City remembers when he was a slow, unathletic, unranked prospect who was passed over by the Florida Atlantic Owls.
“He’s an amazing example for our community,” McKay said. “And that goes way beyond what he is as a basketball player.”
What he is as a basketball player goes way beyond what he was supposed to be, and the 6-foot-10, 240-pound Broome credits the foundational aspects of his life. He still has questions on spirituality for McKay and for Auburn team chaplain Jeremy Napier. He has Scripture inked on his body and on his phone’s lock screen, and he leads the Tigers’ “aura group” of biblical scholars in weekly discussions. His best friends are brother John Jr. and sister Jade’a.
Broome spent hot summer days in Plant City, 24 miles east of Tampa, passing out flyers to market his father’s lawn-care company, and then he’d be the one cutting the grass on the family’s acre of land. When he transferred to Tampa Catholic for the final two years of high school, that meant a 6 a.m. daily drive of more than an hour. It meant getting home at 8:30 p.m. after practice and individual skill work with a trainer.
“He did his chores,” Julie Broome said. “He did his homework. He didn’t do knucklehead stuff.”
If he got a “C,” John and Julie took away his phone and video games for nine weeks.
Auburn coach Bruce Pearl will declare Broome the clear holder of one distinction in college basketball.
“He has to go down as the greatest player of all time ever picked up in the transfer portal at this point,” Pearl said. “Just look at his three-year run.”
It would have been a two-year run, but Broome was afforded an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, he’ll leave Auburn with a college degree and a better chance of going in the first round — The Athletic’s NBA Draft analyst Sam Vecenie projects him to go somewhere between picks 20 and 45.
Broome’s readiness comes from the work ethic that gave him this opportunity in the first place, and from added investment that can enhance today’s college athletes.
He has signed with sports agency CAA and has worked for the past two years with Minneapolis-based trainer Reid Ouse. Ouse, who founded Catalyst Training and works with Andrew Wiggins, Mark Sears and Paige Bueckers, among others, is not merely a skills coach. He spent several years as a college assistant coach and attends Auburn games and practices, collaborating with the staff on Broome’s development and how it fits into the Tigers’ schematic priorities.
Broome doesn’t have to be at Auburn. He could have cleaned up in the portal last spring.
“He could have gotten between $200,000 and $400,000 more,” Pearl said. “I don’t mind stating that. He could have.”
But developing, winning and having a good time should count, too. And the Broomes have become close over the years with the coach they call “BP.” Broome said Pearl “says crazy things about four times a week” but also makes himself available to the Tigers at all times.
Loyalty is serious currency in the Broome household. John and Julie get to McKay’s sermons whenever they can, though it’s tougher during the season with Saturday games and travel all over SEC country. They were on hand for his story about “David and Goliath,” smiling along with everyone else at the revelation that young Johni was his questioner.
Here’s what McKay didn’t tell the congregation: The large check the church had just received from an anonymous donor, to help it rebuild amid $12,000 in damage caused by Hurricane Milton? That was Johni Broome, too.
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