About Zoei
MORE THAN THE MEDALS
The results are easy to list. The story behind them — a seven-year-old on a club track with her dad as her coach, and a kid who still gets nervous before every pentathlon — is the part worth telling.
HOW IT STARTED
Zoei was seven the first time she stepped on a track — not for a tryout, but because her father, Zontavius Johnson, was coaching Legacy Runners Elite Track Club and she wanted to be where he was. She ran her first race in borrowed spikes, finished, and immediately asked when she could do it again. That answer never really changed.
The father-daughter, coach-athlete relationship has shaped everything since. Practice is honest. Standards are high. Nothing gets handed to her because of who her coach is — if anything, the bar is higher. What she gets in return is a coach who knows exactly when she needs a correction and when she just needs to be told she's ready.
WHAT SHE LOVES ABOUT COMPETING
Zoei loves the moment right before it starts — the hands on the blocks, the runway going quiet, the scoreboard blank. She likes being the one who has to answer. Big fields don't shrink her; they focus her. And she genuinely loves the part most athletes dread: the second and third day of a multi-event meet, when everyone is tired and the race becomes about who prepared better.
OFF THE TRACK
Away from meets, she's the loud, funny one — the teammate who starts the warm-up dances and remembers everyone's PRs but her own. She's protective of her friends, competitive at everything from card games to hallway races, and the first to hype up a younger athlete at a club practice. Her family is at the center of it: her dad on the coaching side, her people in the stands at every meet.
SCHOOL & ACADEMIC GOALS
Zoei is a member of the high school class of 2030 and treats the classroom the same way she treats a runway: with a plan. Her goal is to stay on the honor roll through high school, take on advanced coursework, and earn a scholarship to a Division I program where she can compete in the multis while studying toward a career of her own — long after the spikes come off.
WHAT "BUILT FOR THE PODIUM" MEANS TO HER
It isn't a promise that she'll always win. It's a description of the work. Built for The Podium means the 6 a.m. lifts, the hurdle drills nobody films, the school nights spent finishing homework in a hotel before a Saturday final. The podium is the result. The building is the point — and it's why the phrase ended up on the gear she wears and the gear she shares with the people who support her.
LONG-TERM GOALS
- • Keep improving her pentathlon score every season, not just her individual marks
- • Compete as a multi-event athlete at the high school national level
- • Earn a Division I scholarship in the multis
- • Represent Team USA at an international level
- • Build Built for The Podium into a brand that supports young athletes coming behind her
Quick Facts
- Class of
- 2030
- Club
- Legacy Runners Elite
- Coach
- Zontavius Johnson
- Started
- Age 7
- Discipline
- Multi-event
The Multis
A MULTI-EVENT ATHLETE
Multi-event athletes — "multis" — score points across five or seven events in a single competition instead of specializing in one. It rewards athletes who can sprint, jump, throw, and still finish an 800m. Zoei's 3,289-point pentathlon is the number that captures all of it at once.
60m / 100m Hurdles
Aggression and rhythm. Three steps between barriers, no hesitation.
High Jump
Patience and timing — the event that teaches her to slow down and trust the approach.
Shot Put
Raw power. The event that made her respect the weight room.
Long Jump
Pure speed converted into distance. Her favorite feeling in the sport.
Triple Jump
Her signature. Three phases, one rhythm — and a national record.
800m
The closer. Where pentathlons are won and character shows up.
Built for The Podium