PITTSBURGH — Charles Johnson, the Steelers' first-round pick in 1994, who spent five seasons with the team, has died at the age of 50, according to reports out of his home state.
The news was reported by CBS 17 in Wake Forest, N.C., where Johnson had been assistant athletic director at Heritage High School.
Johnson's cause of death has yet to be released, but police in Raleigh, N.C., are investigating after he was found during a welfare check Sunday in a hotel room, per an update from CBS 17 and other outlets.
Despite growing up in poverty with a rough home life in San Bernardino, Calif., Johnson became the 17th overall pick in 1994 and had a career-best 1,008 yards receiving for the Steelers in 1996. He left as a free agent after the 1998 season, when he set career highs with 65 catches and seven touchdowns, and spent the next two years with the Eagles.
"CJ was a guy who never had a bad day," Chad Brown, a linebacker who played with Johnson in college at Colorado and in Pittsburgh, said Wednesday. "I think, obviously, when people pass, we always have a tendency to over-eulogize. But CJ was always a happy dude with an infectious smile, quick to laugh, just a fun guy to be around."
Johnson later played for New England and Buffalo, winning the Super Bowl with the Patriots in 2002. The Bills released him after the 2002-03 season, and he eventually retired, with an eye on coaching.
That's what Johnson did, at the high school level, where in 2016 he joined a Heritage staff led by former Steelers cornerback Dewayne Washington and also including Steelers great Willie Parker and Hall of Fame wide receiver Torry Holt.
Johnson finished his NFL career with 354 receptions, 4,606 yards and 24 touchdowns, plus a score for the Steelers in the 1997 postseason.
"He was a special guy," former Steelers executive Doug Whaley said Wednesday morning on the 93.7 The Fan Morning Show. "He was one of those guys, in the short time I was around him, everybody gravitated to him. He was serious but also could have fun. He had that background where, 'failure's not an option for me, because I know ... ' "
Johnson's most memorable performance in Pittsburgh was a 1998 win against the Titans in which he caught nine passes for 113 yards and three touchdowns, in addition to two 2-point conversions. He was injured for the 1996 playoff run and didn't appear in that Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys.
A college star at Colorado, Johnson had a strong connection with Kordell Stewart, who also was his quarterback for the Buffaloes and was drafted by the Steelers a year later. Stewart once called Johnson his favorite receiver.
Brown, whom the Steelers drafted in the second round one year before Johnson, recalled a college football star who was also academically oriented and someone Brown admired for that at Colorado. After leaving for Seattle in free agency, Brown rented his Gibsonia home to Johnson and his wife, Tanisha, with whom he had two children, Charles III and Cydney.
"CJ was always a quieter guy. Even outside of team activities or classes, he was kind of a homebody," Brown said. "The fact that I hadn't heard from CJ in a while was never a concern because that's just who he's always been. Very into his wife, his family, not on the autograph circuit or the group texts."
