J-Mac, coach honored at AutismUp awards banquet

• Former ESPN personality Roy Firestone delivered the keynote speech/performance.
• Retiring Greece Athena basketball coach Jim Johnson was one of the honorees.
• J-Mac shared remembrances from his big night 10 years ago when he scored 20 points in his only game.

If you don’t believe in karma, well …

Jim Johnson, the retiring Greece Athena teacher and boys’ basketball coach, was sitting last year in a huge ballroom in Washington, D.C., at the National Speakers Association summer conference, listening to Roy Firestone deliver his typically inspirational and entertaining keynote speech.

About halfway through, Johnson almost fell out of his chair when, on the video screen above the stage, appeared Jason McElwain, Johnson’s forever “hot as a pistol” autistic student manager who on Feb. 15, 2006, became a worldwide phenomenon.

“Roy’s a very dynamic speaker, uses a lot of different stories, he does impressions, he sings, he’s very entertaining,” Johnson recalled. “All of a sudden he has J-Mac up on the big screen. And I see myself being interviewed, and he starts sharing the J-Mac story. He’s been doing this as part of his show the last 10 years. I couldn’t believe it, I had no idea, and he didn’t know I was in the audience.”

RocJocks: J-Mac was 'hotter than a pistol'

A day later Johnson got in touch via phone with Firestone, asked him whether he’d be interested in someday speaking at a fundraiser for autism in Rochester, and someday turned out to be Thursday afternoon at the Riverside Convention Center.

“I think this is all karma, good karma,” Firestone said with a smile before he entertained approximately 1,000 people in the grand ballroom with his keynote at the first AutismUp Opportunity Awards.

The day was a dual celebration of the 10th anniversary of J-Mac’s improbable 20-point explosion and a chance to recognize Rochesterians who provide support, opportunity and successful outcomes for people living with autism. J-Mac and Johnson were among the honorees.

Since its inception, AutismUp has become the leading 501(c)3 autism support organization in Rochester and has grown to more than 2,000 family and professional member households. All proceeds raised Thursday will go toward helping the organization fund programs and expand its reach in Rochester and the surrounding area.“We’re recognizing great people that have done such great things for AutismUp,” said the now 27-year-old J-Mac, who along with Johnson has taken part in various fundraisers for the organization, which was founded in 2004 by a small group of parents of children with autism.

“I’ve been connected with them for the last four years, gone to some events, had my players go and volunteer — they have a little basketball program — so I’m hoping this can be an annual event and raise a lot of money,” said Johnson, who, in retirement, said he’s going to devote more of his time to help raise awareness of autism.

“I’d like to really try to help them more,” Johnson continued. “When Jason got into the game, I think it was like 1 in 150 were born in the U.S. with autism. Now it’s like 1 in 68. It is scary to think that it keeps going in that direction.”

Firestone admitted to being blown away that Johnson was in his audience that day, and not surprisingly, he jumped at the chance to come to Rochester.

“I heard from Jim the next day and he said we need to do something in Rochester and I said, ‘Are you kidding? That would be a dream come true,’” Firestone recalled.

Firestone is a seven-time Emmy Award winner and seven-time cable ACE Award-winning host, interviewer, narrator, writer and producer who first came into prominence as host of ESPN’s Up Close interview program in the 1980s. He has a remarkably busy schedule, but the chance to meet J-Mac was too good to pass up.

“When I met J-Mac and coach Johnson last night, it was like meeting a friend, even though I’d never met them,” Firestone said. “It was a really weird feeling.”

When asked why he has shared J-Mac’s story and the incredible video from that night, by his estimation, about 300 times, Firestone said, “When I saw it, I knew I had to tell this story. I wanted this to be a story that I would make my own, and now that I know the rest of the story, I will continue to do the original, but now I’m going to update everybody on how J-Mac has done, and how coach has done.”

Near the end of his hourlong performance, after showing the enduring video of J-Mac’s big night, Firestone brought J-Mac and Johnson on stage and conducted a question-and-answer session with both. “This is one of the highlights of my career, because (J-Mac) is what a champion is all about,” Firestone told the audience.

In this edition of the ROC Sports Talk podcast, Sal Maiorana, Leo Roth, and Jeff Diveronica discuss the LeSean McCoy case, Super Bowl 50, Syracuse basketball and NCAA recruiting.

Afterward, Firestone, who attended the Greece Athena game Wednesday night which was Johnson’s final regular-season game, said he was so impressed by the man J-Mac has become.

“He’s running marathons, he’s working at Wegmans, he’s an unpaid assistant coach for coach Johnson, he’s met the president, Kobe Bryant,” Firestone said. “So his life has improved just by interaction and I can’t tell people how important that is for autistic people. Not everybody is as functional, we know that, but the interaction, the stimulus, the intellectual ability to go back and forth with people and meet people, has improved him what, one thousand percent? He’s a completely different person than he was at 17, largely because of this experience.”

MAIORANA@Gannett.com