---

Joplin died in 1970 and didn’t leave anything regarding Johnson in her interviews. But Johnson has spoken about Joplin a few times.

“She wasn’t real fond of the jocks because we kind of teased her,” Johnson said in the 2016 SEC Network documentary “Before They Were Cowboys.” I actually gave her a nickname, “Beat Weeds.” This was the late 1950s, and the “hippie movement” with which Joplin would become linked had not yet started.

Locally, the teenage Joplin was known as a talented painter and folk singer. Johnson, meanwhile, “could solve algebra problems at a glance and write term papers worthy of A’s the night before they were due,” Sports Illustrated’s Ed Hinton wrote in 1992. “He was a football lineman with the scars of childhood street ball showing through his burr haircut and was called Scar Head.”

“By a quirk in scheduling, Janis [class of 1960] and Jimmy [c/o 1961] once had to put up with each other in a history class for an entire school year, she seated behind him. He would tease the weirdo, “give her a hard time, irritate her,” he remembers; she would scoff at the jock and ignore him as best she could.”

“It was like oil and water mixing,” recalled Jim Maxfield, Johnson’s childhood friend, in “Before They Were Cowboys.” (Maxfield recalls the two actually sat side by side.) “Both of ’em knew that the other one was bright, and neither one of ’em could really get the upper hand. She would not invite him over for a glass of tea, I don’t think,” he added.

Was there any flirtatious edge to all this teasing? Johnson stiff-armed the notion with smile in the Sports Illustrated interview when his girlfriend brought up the fact that the Port Arthur library had a display case with Joplin’s panties in it. “Beat Weeds’ panties,” Jimmy scoffed. “She never wore any panties.*” And to raised eyebrows all around, he adds, “From what I understand.”

http://www.thesportsseer.com/2017/08/14/jimmy-johnson-and-janis-joplin/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3965895&forum_id=2pk5w1#35965158)

I don't know, it is interesting to think of how people's images of fellow high school (or earlier) classmates change once they become famous. As a football player for the Razorbacks did he ever think, "I should have fucked her -- would have been a story."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3965895&forum_id=2pk5w1#35967682)

i remember watching some Beatles documentary on PBS, and John Lennon was being interviewed in the 70s and goes "First time I saw Little Richard, I couldn't believe a NIGGER could sing like that." And he meant it as a compliment lol

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3965895&forum_id=2pk5w1#37989508)