Overnight success: Chad Johnson's emergence as one of the game's elite receivers wasn't really all that sudden. It was the result of a work ethic that drives him to study deep into the night and often to sleep at the Bengals' facility

Sporting News, The, Oct 4, 2004 by Dennis Dillon

So, how did Johnson get from there to here? He credits three men for laying the foundation for his ascent: Sanders, Bratkowski and Charlie Collins, a wide receivers coach/guru who has worked at several Los Angeles area colleges and runs an offseason camp for Johnson and several other NFL wide receivers called the Phenom Factory.

Collins was the wide receivers coach at Santa Monica when Johnson was there. In 1998, the year Johnson was ineligible, Collins still made time to work with him extensively. Sometimes, Johnson would call and get Collins out of bed on a Sunday morning. "Out of 365 days" says Collins, "we probably went about 300."

Collins stressed fundamentals and the nuances of playing wide receiver at a high level. He honed Johnson's eye-hand coordination, footwork, release and separation techniques. He taught him how to sink his hips coming in and out of breaks, and how to approach training and games. "It was like taking a pencil with a broken point and sharpening it up," says Johnson. "I was the pencil."

Collins became a surrogate father to Johnson. He bought him meals, invited him to his house and steered him back into the classroom in the spring and summer of 2000 so Johnson could qualify academically for Oregon State. And when he had to put a hammer down, Collins did it forcefully.

After Johnson had been at Oregon State for only a week, he called Collins from the airport in Corvallis, crying. He wanted to return to L.A. That's when Collins laid into him. "I cursed him," Collins recalls. "I told him if he got on that plane and came home, not only would I kick his butt, but I'd also take him back. He was so used to me being there. He had to get used to me not being there."

Bratkowski's connection to Johnson goes back to January 2001, when Bratkowski, then the wide receivers coach for the Steelers, was Johnson's position coach in the Senior Bowl. Johnson performed impressively that week, both in practice and the game, and Bratkowski remembered it three months later, after he had become the Bengals' coordinator. He became Johnson's advocate in the Bengals' draft room. When it came time to discuss Johnson, Bratkowski argued, "All I know is there wasn't anybody at the Senior Bowl who came close to covering him."

Johnson says, "The only reason I'm here is because of coach Brat."

The third member of the trinity, Sanders, invited Johnson to a weekend seminar for NFL wide receivers and cornerbacks at his Dallas estate in June 2003. The players trained at a nearby high school and talked strategy and life at Sanders' home.

For three days, Johnson was like a sponge, absorbing whatever Prime Time had to say about running pass routes, reading defensive backs' tendencies and studying film. A friendship was forged--they talked a couple of times a week last year--and Johnson left the seminar with a new sense of confidence.

"Prime just took me over the rainbow" says Johnson, who was disappointed when Sanders couldn't play Sunday. "Three days that are going to carry me for a lifetime of success in the NFL."