North Park University Athletics

Coach Luke Johnson completed his 20th season at the helm of North Park Baseball in 2025, qualifying for the CCIW Tournament in his sixth-straight season.

Johnson guided the Vikings back to CCIW gold in 2024 and entered the Viking Hall of Fame in February 2025 as part of the 2024 HOF class. The four-time CCIW Coach of the Year has turned the 1-39 CCIW basement-dwelling club of 2005 into a program that has garnered attention on the conference and national level.  On his watch, the Vikings have become multiple time CCIW Champions, routinely qualify for the CCIW  postseason tournament, earned spots in both the regional and national rankings, and competed in the NCAA tournament.

Johnson’s players appear throughout the career and single season record books.  They’ve fared well on the CCIW level with 50+ of his players being named to the All-CCIW squad.  The Vikings have had 3 CCIW “Player of the Year” award recipients, earned two CCIW “Pitcher of the Year” awards and one CCIW “Newcomer of the Year” nod as well.

On the national level, 30+ players have been selected to the Rawlings/ABCA All Central Region team, with five ABCA All-American award winners and 5 Rawlings National Gold Glove winners.  They have also been well-represented in NCBWA/D3baseball.com’s honor roll as well, with eight All-Central Region awards and two "Central Region Player of the Year" selections.  

Johnson’s Vikings have also included MLB draft picks and free-agent signees.  For his efforts, Johnson has earned the CCIW “Coach of the Year” award four times (2006, 2011, 2012, 2024). Johnson is the NPU all-time wins leader for the baseball program (385).

The accolades for his teams are not strictly baseball related, however. The Vikings baseball team has produced multiple CCIW Jack Swartz Award winners and has received the ABCA Academic Excellence Award 9 straight years. North Park is one of just two CCIW institutions to earn team academic honors in each year since the ABCA started handing out the award.

A Mendota, Ill. native, Johnson has also held coaching positions with other national organizations. In 2005 and 2006, Johnson held positions with USA Baseball as a Trials Coach for the Youth National Team.  The 2006 National Team went on to win the Gold medal over the likes of Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico in the COPABE/Pan-Am Championships. In 2004 he served as an assistant for the Holyoke Giants of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. The NECBL is an NCAA-sanctioned, wood-bat college summer league.

Professionally, Johnson has served since 2010 as the Region VIII chair for the ABCA/Rawlings All-America committee as well as having held past positions as the NCAA national selection committee chair for baseball as well as the ABCA for the Central region.  He has been a featured speaker for the ABCA Barnstormers Clinic as well as the BCA national High School Coaches clinic and The Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association clinic.   He spent four seasons as an assistant at CCIW rivals Elmhurst ('02) and North Central ('03-'05).

As a player at Elmhurst College (now University), Johnson set an NCAA record for consecutive times reaching base safely (all divisions), earned both All-CCIW First Team and Rawlings/ABCA All-Central Region honors as an outfielder, as well as a two-time Verizon/CoSIDA Academic All-Region honors as a student. He still holds places in the career record book in a number of Elmhurst career and single season offensive categories. He holds degrees from both Elmhurst and North Central.  Johnson and his wife, Kelli, are the parents of three children; Jacob, Brady, and Erin.

NPU COACHING CAREER, SEASON-BY-SEASON