Will Johnston thought he was the worst athlete in the family.

His older sister, Paige, boasted 11 state titles in track and cross-country. His younger sister, Marie, was all-state for Virginia in cross-country as a freshman. His youngest sister, Kari, earned all-state honors as a high school senior.

After high school, the three sisters had offers to play their respective sports at Division I schools while Will had to walk on to his top choice, Virginia Tech.

“It kind of pushed me to go harder,” he said. “There was definitely competition.”

Though Paige graduated from Arkansas, Marie and Kari joined Will this year at their parents’ alma mater. Marie, a sophomore, joined the VT cross-country and track teams after spending her freshman year at Wake Forest. Kari is a freshman on the Virginia Tech soccer team and Will passed up other college offers to walk on for the Hokies.

Now a senior, he’s earned a scholarship and averages 3.1 points per game while shooting 40 percent from the field and behind the arc. He’s started the last six games for Virginia Tech (9-12, 1-7 Atlantic Coast), which faces Syracuse (14-7, 5-3) in the Carrier Dome at 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

“I don’t know a lot of (Marie’s) reasoning but I know Tech kind of felt like home to her and for Kari, it was kind of the same,” Johnston said.

Now that his sisters are there with him, Virginia Tech feels exactly like home for Will.

He can go to dinner and church with his sisters on a weekly basis. He can work out with them and vent to them after a tough game. To top it off, their parents can make one trip to see all three of them.

“It’s unreal,” Kari said about having her siblings at school with her. “I can always turn to them for advice or if I’m having a bad day.”

During the school year, the siblings don’t have much time to work out together. But last summer, Kari would join her brother in an empty gym to shoot hoops.

When they were younger, the separation in skill wasn’t as great. Will remembers playing basketball at his house with his sisters and when he lost, he would get mad. The loser of any game in the Johnston backyard would often end up hurling the ball away in frustration.

Every summer, the extended Johnston family would go to the beach together and the kids took part in a partner race. Marie said the year she and Will were teamed up, they won.

Now on different teams, each sibling works to support the others.

“Normally when you see a friend and you’re just walking to class or something, they don’t really come to you,” Marie said, “but my sister was having a tough day and she came to me and we hugged and talked. I think it’s really special to be able to do that any given day.”

The past few weeks were tough for Will as the Hokies basketball team endured a seven-game losing streak capped off by a three-point loss to then-No. 2 Virginia. After the game, his sisters picked him up with a string of text messages.

They told him to stay positive and keep working hard, that the wins would come. Other times they’ll send him motivational quotes that help him get through a tough practice.

When they get together for weekly dinners on Sunday nights, the family just hangs out. Sometimes they sit in silence and eat; other times they try to make each other laugh.

Ironically, the three athletes get together to talk about anything other than sports.

“We’re really close and that’s helped us with our respective sports because we can all talk to each other and help each other out,” Will said. “I think each of us doing a sport has really helped the others.”

Published on February 3, 2015 at 12:10 am