Wheaton College Athletics

Marv Johnson came to Wheaton in the fall of 1947 and quickly established himself as a star on the Crusader basketball squad. As a freshman, he nailed down the center position and led both the team and conference in scoring with a 19.2 average. He helped lead Wheaton to a tie for their first conference championship and was elected to the All-Conference team. Marv picked up where he left off in his next varsity season, and proceeded to score 590 points in the 26-game season, setting a new Wheaton record. He also set a new conference mark of 245 points in the 10-game schedule, dumped in 258 field goals and pushed his two-year total to 984 points, another record. He was again chosen for the All-Conference team.

During his junior year, Marv led the team to a 17-9 season and amassed 505 more points and had his career-high game of 45 against Morris Harvey College. He again was named to the All-Conference First Team and served as co-captain of the Crusaders. Marv’s final season he again led the team as captain and garnered 555 more points to run his four-year total to 2,044, a new Wheaton record at the time and the most points scored in Illinois collegiate history at that time. The team finished with a 17-9 record, Marv was named All-Conference for the fourth year and he was named a small college All-American. His scoring total ranked ninth in the national record books on the all-time intercollegiate list at the time of his graduation.