Washington Mystics rookie Cassandre Prosper wasn’t sure what was going on. Teammate Rori Harmon had a hunch that something was up.
Just before the coaches entered the locker room after the team’s win over the Seattle Storm on Sunday, head coach Sydney Johnson paused. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I need to check on something.”
“I’m like, ‘Nah, he’s thinking of something. He’s about to do something,’” Harmon told The IX Sports on Thursday.
Harmon was right: When Johnson came in, he was armed with a bag of dodgeballs, which he threw at as many players as he could before guard Georgia Amoore snatched the bag from him. Then he just screamed in jubilation, rallying his team to celebrate with him.
Joy has been one of the Mystics’ core values ever since Johnson was hired in December 2024, and he has talked about it often. But this year, Johnson’s joy has been noticeably more exuberant — matching the energy of this year’s Mystics, who are the second-youngest team in WNBA history.
“Our team has a very big character, and I think most people know that,” Harmon said. “And so I think he really emphasizes and pours into that and doesn’t try to shy away from it.”
“[It’s] maybe a little bit out of character or maybe turning the years back, I don’t know,” the 52-year-old Johnson told reporters on Thursday.
Since Johnson arrived in Washington, he has always been something of a fatherly presence. That seems to come naturally, as he has two children around the same ages as his players. On Father’s Day, he even compared coaching to parenting and said he wants to give players the space to make mistakes and learn from them.
“He’s like a dad coach for sure,” forward Kiki Iriafen told reporters on July 5.
“It is a feeling you get from him,” then-Mystics guard Brittney Sykes told The IX Sports in April 2025, early in training camp. “We make jokes that he’s such a dad. … [He has] that loving sense and that protectiveness, like, ‘Hey, I got your back. I’m not gonna let you go too far, but I’m gonna let you experiment.’ … That helps a lot, especially when you’re new on both sides. Like, man, there is no fear to mess up.”
That approach was well-suited to the 2025 Mystics, who were by far the league’s youngest team that season until the trade deadline. In the preseason, they had been widely picked to finish in the bottom three, but they were in playoff position until they traded Sykes and forward Aaliyah Edwards at the deadline.
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However, Johnson’s approach may be particularly fitting for the 2026 team, which is even younger than the 2025 team. He has said several times that he doesn’t believe the Mystics’ youth is a disadvantage, even though they routinely face teams that are three, four or five years older on average.
“The youth is something that we’re good with [and] we’re celebrating,” Johnson said on Thursday. “… We understand that there’s things to improve and get better on, but there’s also just a joy for playing and competing, and we’re not taking anything for granted. And so we’ll celebrate that, too.”
With such a young team, Johnson and his staff are all-in on development for every player, from the barely-21-year-old Prosper to 26-year-old Michaela Onyenwere. They want to win, but the results are less important than getting better and instilling the habits Johnson wants to see, including bringing energy, toughness and togetherness every day. And he’s been thrilled with how his players are “stacking days, day after day after day,” to improve individually and collectively and mature as pros.
“I’m all in on every single one of our players, honestly,” Johnson said after a win over the Atlanta Dream on July 2. “… Our whole roster, I think there’s opportunities for them moving forward, and that’s what we’re built for.”
Another habit Johnson has emphasized is staying even-keeled after big wins and tough losses alike. Players’ response to losing in particular often has to change at the pro level, since games were usually farther apart in college and, for players at top college programs, losses were rare and sometimes seismic. Johnson regularly tells his players to feel whatever emotions they’re experiencing after games until midnight, then turn the page. That’s something he thinks they’ve improved at throughout the season.
“Just stay grounded,” second-year guard Sonia Citron told reporters on Thursday, summarizing Johnson’s messaging. “There’s a lot of ups and downs in the season, and just don’t let it roll over. … Take what we need to learn from this game and move on.”
“Every time you wake up, blink and everything, there’s a game,” Harmon said. “Oh, you won? Oh, there’s a game. … [So] that mentality of next play or whether that’s next game, I think that he does a really good job of emphasizing that, and I really appreciate that. That’s something that I needed in my life for sure.”
The Mystics are again exceeding expectations this season, sitting in playoff position with a 12-11 record. They are 7-5 on the road, including a win over the first-place Minnesota Lynx on June 21.
In part, the players are responding so well to Johnson because they know he cares about them as people, not just as players. Fourth overall draft pick Lauren Betts told the “Bird’s Eye View” podcast in May that Johnson had been excited to see her do a SportsCenter interview on mental health, a topic she has been open about since college. Harmon said he often tells the team to do something restorative and joyful on off days. And developmental player Darianna Littlepage-Buggs, who has yet to make her WNBA debut, told The IX Sports in June that Johnson often “reminds me that I’m an actual person and not just a player” and invests in her development just as much as other players’.
The players also know he has their back, in games and off the court. Johnson rarely gets technical fouls, but the times he’s gotten the most upset are when he feels like the officials aren’t protecting his players. That included his first technical foul as a Mystic in June 2025 and his ejection against the Dream on June 6.
“It was cool to see,” Citron said after the 2025 technical foul. “I think it made me a little like, ‘He’s riding for us, so we’re gonna ride for him.’ So … it made me kind of a little hype.”
Emily Engstler, who played for Johnson in 2025 but went to the Portland Fire in the 2026 expansion draft, was the first player to text Johnson after his ejection this season.
“I know how it feels to come down from that anger and the frustration,” Engstler told The IX Sports on Thursday. “I wanted him to know, ‘Fuck yeah, Coach. That was some good shit. Way to have your players’ backs so that they don’t have to do that themselves.’ … I thought that was out of genuine love.”
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As the players’ connections with each other and with Johnson have deepened throughout the season, their youthful exuberance has only gotten more pronounced.
“We keep him on his toes,” Iriafen said. “I know he doesn’t have a lot of hair, but we give him gray hairs.”
“He’s like, ‘You guys are wild. You’re wild,’” Betts said. “That’s what he says all the time. We’re like, ‘OK.’”
Led by Iriafen, the players have been challenging Johnson to match their energy, and he has delivered. It began after the win over the Lynx, as Johnson raced into the locker room screaming and Iriafen lifted him in the air. He kicked his feet back and forth as she held him up, then started screaming again when she set him down.
Asked a few days later how it felt to have Iriafen pick him up, Johnson chuckled and said, “It feels free, like I’m flying.”
After the win over the Dream, he tried to be understated in the locker room, but the players were having none of it. “He was nonchalant,” Iriafen said. “He was like, ‘Good job, Mystics.’ We’re like, ‘No, do it again.’”
So Johnson left and came back in for a second try. He did an exaggerated knee bend before making a lassoing motion and jumping around, drawing laughs and applause from the players.
Then came the dodgeballs a few days later, after the team had played dodgeball in practice and Johnson had taken a hard fall trying not to get hit. And after the team’s fourth win in five games against the Toronto Tempo on Tuesday, he wiggled his hips back and forth. He then told the videographer, “Delete that! Delete that!” — but still had a huge smile on his face.
“I love seeing those videos of them doing funny shit in the locker room,” Engstler said. “He’s a funny guy, and he’s just having fun.”
“I think he really genuinely cares and loves us,” Prosper said. “I feel like you see his playful side a little bit on social media, and that’s just because he loves being around us. … And we’ve been showing that side of ourselves to him, so he feels like he can do the same.”
At least three times this season, Johnson has said in press conferences that he believes he has the best job in the WNBA. That’s partly because of the joy throughout the organization and how much fun he’s having expressing it. It’s been like a fountain of youth for him — and it’s led the Mystics to a steadier stream of success than many people expected.
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Sports. The IX Sports’ editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
