Looking back at KOMO News Anchor Eric Johnson’s move from sports to news

SEATTLE — When Eric Johnson joined the KOMO News anchor team as sports director, he thought of his role as the dessert.

Dan Lewis and Kathi Goertzen delivered the main course – the news. Steve Pool served up a side of the weather, and sports were a treat in the end.

Eric was perfectly happy with his place at the table. But Dan Lewis was preparing to retire, and KOMO News’ general manager at the time suggested Eric switch from sports to news.

“Don’t answer me now,” Lewis said to Eric.

“So I went home and thought about it. I came back the next day, and I said thank you. That’s very sweet. The answer is no,” Eric remembered.

General manager Jim Clayton didn’t take a no for an answer.

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“It was just one of those things I could easily see,” Clayton said. “You could just see from the talent that he had. His presence on the set and the way he conducted himself in front of the camera. It was pretty obvious to me that he had all the abilities to do that.”

And in November of 2006, Eric slid his chair to the center of the set. Dan hadn’t retired yet, and the two of them co-anchored KOMO News’ 5 o’clock news. Eric’s wife Monique remembers watching on day one in November of 2006.

“The first night he anchored, I was very excited,” Monique said. “I’m cooking dinner, and I’m in the kitchen. I’ve got a little TV there, and there was a story about a person who had a botched plastic surgery on their stomach. For some reason, the reporter said, ‘Do you want to show us?’ And the person lifted their shirt.”

Eric remembers this, too. “They were showing their stomach, and there was an infection, and it wasn’t pretty,” Eric said. “I made a face, and they came out to us unexpectedly, and there I was making this face.”

“It was like a 10th of a second, and I was like, did he just make a face on TV?” Monique said.

“The face” was a classic Eric grimace. An editor at KOMO News got a freeze frame of the moment, and the Johnsons have had it on their refrigerator ever since.

And so, that’s how it began. Things, of course, got better from there.

For four years, Eric anchored the news at 5 o’clock but still anchored sports at 6 and 11 o’clock. He treasured that time – doing what he loved while learning something new.

“It’s okay to change. It’s okay to grow up and do different things, and I felt like I matured as a communicator,” Eric said.

By 2010, Eric left sports and was anchoring news only. But that title of “news anchor” never defined his role at KOMO News.

“Eric would never just be a sports person. He would never just be a news anchor,” Monique said. “His passion, as you know, as everyone knows, is writing stories, getting to know people, finding the little joys in life. That is really what drives him.”

I think of myself as someone who communicates by telling stories,” Eric said. “And the best sports stories are just people’s stories. They just happen to be around the world of sports, so that part of it was an easy transition. I’m still telling stories about human beings.