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Johnny Franco once dreamt of being a professional football player when he was just a boy growing up in Altoona.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but he still left his mark in Blair County on the scholastic level, and at the collegiate level at IUP. He will have a Hall of Fame credential to prove it, too.
On Saturday, Sept. 26, on the campus of the Crimson Hawks football program where he excelled for two years, Franco will be inducted into the IUP Athletics Hall of Fame for his performance on the gridiron during the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
"I thought there is no one more deserving than Johnny, not only because of his production on the field but all the other intangibles he brought to the program," said IUP head football coach Paul Tortorella, who was Franco's defensive coordinator back then.
Franco, the son of high school football coach John Franco, was a standout at Tyrone for his father and that was enough to earn a ticket to West Point where he played two seasons for coach Stan Brock at Army. However, Brock was let go and replaced by Jeff Montken, and Johnny Franco then decided to go to IUP, where his father played, and where his younger brother, Steve, would play alongside his older brother.
Johnny Franco found out about the induction announcement through a friend.
"It was both exciting and incredibly humbling to find out that I had been selected for the IUP Athletics Hall of Fame," he said. "There were so many great players on my team, especially on the defensive side of the ball. They made my job so much easier."
Johnny Franco, who will be one of 10 former athletes and one administrator-coach and one team to get inducted, was on an IUP team that went 7-3 in 2011 and 12-2 in 2012 when it made it to the quarterfinals of the Division II playoffs. The team finished ranked seventh that season in the final poll.
"There is no way I could have received this honor without 10 other great defenders lining up beside me every Saturday," said Franco, whose head coach those two seasons was Curt Cignetti, the current head coach of the defending national champion Indiana Hoosiers..
From his defensive back position, he finished with 171 tackles in 34 games, 18.5 tackles for loss, 15 interceptions, 24 pass breakups and four forced fumbles. He was the team captain on the No. 1-ranked Division II defense in the nation. He made the 2012 Associated Press All-American team, the Capital One Academic All-American team and a 2011-2012 All-PSAC team.
"I can honestly say there were numerous times during a game where I would say over the headphones 'Do you believe Johnny just made that play?'" Tortorella recalled. "That guy is a football player. I was excited to get Johnny to IUP because I knew his dad played here and was a coach, and coming from Army I knew there would not be any BS with him."
Franco, who graduated with a degree in Nutrition with a pre-medicine concentration and chemistry minor, currently lives in Hollidaysburg with his wife, Miranda, and his son, John V.