Marcqus Johnson

November 7, 2015
Communications Writing
Dr. Skocik

A Fathers Message to his Son

How a father kept his son on the right path
Dwayne Johnson is a man of great integrity and a man with a no nonsense attitude. He is
a father of four children, including myself. He is a Michigan man born and raised, but moved to
Maryland when his job at Pepsi-Cola transferred him there.
Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 3, 1964. He was the second son and
third out of four children to Edward and Ruby May Johnson. Dwayne Johnson was raised in the
church by his pastor father and had values put in him at a very young age.
Johnson went on to go to Division III Albion College on a basketball scholarship after
starring at Saginaw High School. Albion College is often referred to as the Stanford of the
Midwest. My older brother Deshawn Johnson was born in 1984 on April 23, which could have
hampered my dads progress in school. It did not. He graduated in 1986 and received his BA in
the College of Business in Business Management and went on to work for Pepsi-Cola.
During his tenure at Pepsi-Cola, he was a sales representative and traveled all over the
country to places like San Francisco, Dallas, and Jacksonville to help those branches improve
production and make more revenue. He met my mother during his college days and they moved
to Maryland together in 1990.
He left Pepsi-Cola in 1992 after my brother Dominique Johnson was born on November
26, 1991, because he felt unfulfilled in what his mission was in life. That is when he began
teaching because he felt he needed to further educate and instill the values he learned as a kid.
When my mother gave birth to me on February 21, 1994, my father told me he knew I
was destined to be a special young man. My younger brother and the last child my parents had,
Christian Johnson, was born on September 20, 1995, and that is when my fathers mission
became clear.
His mission was to educate and develop young men into better men, outstanding fathers,
and also living a life with God. My father always made us as children attend bible study and two
church services on Sundays to let us know that if you have a relationship with God, everything
that challenges you in life will seem little compared to if you neglect him.
When I was ten years old, my father told me something that struck me and still sticks
with me to this day. He told me to, Always strive for greatness and to be better than I ever was.
As a kid, I had no clue what he was talking about because I was only focused on getting good
grades, playing sports, and trying to have a lot of girlfriends. He told me to focus on the right
things and always keep negative things out of my life.
Dwayne Johnson is a man that used a form of punishment mainly seen in the black
community, corporal punishment. The spankings that my brothers and I received as youngsters
for our acts of stupidity. The spankings we received were served to let us know that in the real
world if you go stupid things, that the consequences for your idiotic mistakes can be dire.
My father always taught us lessons in different aspects in life that still carry with us to
this day. When I was going through back to back injury riddled seasons my junior and senior
year of high school, I was just in a negative place because I lost my athletic scholarships to both

Maryland and Virginia Tech. My passion for living my life to the fullest how he taught me to do
went away. He talked to me one night and told me, you know to just put your faith back in Gods
hands and let him lead you through this troubling time. Those powerful words hold true due to
the varying circumstances my family has been through.
When both of my parents lost their jobs in the early 2011 due to the school they worked
at closing due to financial ramifications, things looked destined to go bad for my family. My
parents called all the kids still living at the house into a family meeting, one that weve never had
before. They broke the news to us and we didnt know what to say or do at that moment. My
parents told me to start looking for a job now because they needed me now more than ever.
Family over everything except your faith in God is a value I always live by. My family still has
financial troubles and I leave school to go help them out, which reflects in my grades.
My fathers main values he instilled in us was that to always keep faith in God, family
over everything and also to make sure to treat everyone with respect and dignity no matter how
they treat you.