It was the day after Jasper Johnson had won a gold medal with Team USA and the Feeba World Cup.

The five-star guard was still in Switzerland, waiting to fly home with his family to join his teammates at summer workouts ahead of his freshman season at Kentucky.

There was so much for the 19-year-old to celebrate and look forward to, but all Jasper could think about was the one man who

couldn't be there. He picked up his phone. Grandaddy, I woke up a gold medalist, Jasper wrote on

social media. Thank you for all that you taught me. Elvis Johnson was the patriarch of the Johnson

family. If you're too young to know that name, you may know his sons, Dennis and

Derek, who spun legends playing for their father at Heronsburg High School before terrorizing

offenses on Kentucky's defensive line in the late 1990s. You've probably also heard of Craig Yeast,

another Kentucky football great, who is the cousin of Nyoka, Jasper's mother.

The Johnson family name is synonymous with greatness in Kentucky.

When it comes to generational stories, few can compare.

Jasper has the potential to write the most compelling chapter yet,

and he's dedicating it to Alvis.

I mean, knowing a lot of my hard work and being able to be in the places that I am today is because of my grandfather.

I know he was a great father to my dad who, you know, passed down many generations and has taken care of me my whole life.

So just, you know, knowing that he's not here anymore, but he's still with me in spirit and trying to do whatever I can for him in his name.

Elvis Johnson will forever be associated with Herodzburg, but he was born in Hopkinsville.

The son of a sharecropper, Elvis was the first in his family to graduate from high school, Christian County,

and the first to go to college, earning his master's degree from Western Kentucky University while also playing football.

After considering law school, Alvis returned to his hometown to teach and coach.

He was content to stay there and shape the young minds of his community, but in 1973, received a phone call that set him on a different path.

Forrest Williamson, the superintendent of the

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