'Softball got me through': Maya Johnson's inspirational journey from lupus to the pros

MIAMI -- While her Oklahoma City Spark teammates take swings in the cages and run through the rhythm of a professional practice, left-handed pitcher Maya Johnson is elsewhere, spending another hour in treatment and managing a body that demands more attention than most ever see.

Lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack healthy tissues and organs, has been part of her life since she was 15, and so has learning to keep playing the sport she loves anyway.

“Something we say consistently [in the Spark organization] is we have hearts of grace and gratitude,” Johnson said. “The grace to carry yourself in a professional manner at this level, and the gratitude that we were given the opportunity to be here.”

A 2026 first-team All-American, Johnson recently became the first mid-major player selected in the AUSL's new draft format, going No. 3 overall after a standout season at Belmont University.

The Columbia Station, Ohio, native also became the highest-drafted professional athlete in university history across all sports, leading NCAA Division 1 softball in ERA (0.78), strikeouts (397), strikeout-to-walk ratio (11.03) and complete games (31) this past season.

Johnson hopes the milestone will show athletes from programs beyond the traditional Power Four conferences that a professional career is within reach. She also showed she was ready for the pro game in her AUSL debut. Johnson was OKC’s Opening Day starter as a rookie and threw six innings, earning the win.

Her story is also an inspiration for players managing chronic illnesses.

“I'm grateful to even be stepping on the field, given my personal adversity with my health circumstances,” Johnson said. “I had so much personal adversity in my life that the adversity on the softball field doesn't seem that hard.”

During her sophomore year of high school in 2018, her condition was under the care of her rheumatologist. But a severe kidney flare-up during last year’s offseason forced a more aggressive treatment plan, including 10 rounds of low-dose chemotherapy infusions to prevent kidney failure.

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this is serious,’” Johnson said. “‘I guess I don't have a choice,’ and the whole time, my brain is focused on softball, because I [was] going to have to do chemo if I wanted to play. So softball got me through one of the hardest things in my life, because it was my thing to look forward to.”

The process carried a mental weight, with cycles of feeling better before each infusion, followed by the anticipation of feeling worse again.

“There's this really interesting mental toll it takes on you to know you're going into something to feel awful, and hope that it works,” Johnson said.

Through it all, she never seriously considered quitting. The only time that thought crossed her mind, she joked, was as a second grader on a farm team in her hometown. Recruited while in Girl Scouts and stuck in the outfield, she passed the time singing Hannah Montana songs, picking dandelions and doing high kicks.

The lack of action in the outfield bored Johnson, so by the end of third grade, she turned to pitching for a more active role. She has never looked back and is a long way from the fourth grader motivated by ice cream for base hits and gummy worms for sliding into a base.

“[Softball] has been such a lifeline for me, and that's not even just in terms of the fact that I get to do that as my career,” she said. “It's brought so many of my closest friends, it's taught me discipline [and] it's helped me manage things in school.”

Johnson attended Saint Joseph Academy in Cleveland, where she accumulated a 0.65 ERA with 505 strikeouts before beginning her collegiate career at the University of Pittsburgh.

Johnson redshirted as a freshman due to concerns related to her lupus. Since she was not medically cleared to compete, she was offered the option to remain on scholarship as a medically disqualified student-athlete.

Under NCAA rules, the disqualification is generally reserved for athletes whose injury or illness is considered permanently incapacitating and prevents them from participating in athletic activities at that institution.

Rather than end her playing career, Johnson entered the transfer portal and was eventually cleared to compete at Belmont, where medical staff determined she could safely participate. Medical-clearance decisions are made independently by each institution based on its evaluations.

“I entered the transfer portal and was told ‘no’ a bunch,” Johnson said. “... I’ve had periods of adversity where it would have been easier to just walk away from softball and be done.”

But she kept returning to the same question: If she wasn’t able to play, what was the point of feeling bad?

Softball has taught her that with belief in herself, her teammates and her support system, she can overcome anything, so she would not let anyone tell her she couldn't play.

“Pursuing professional softball was no different for me,” Johnson said.

On April 17 at Belmont University’s E.S. Rose Park in Nashville, Tenn., as the AUSL draft video played on the video board, Johnson tried to convince herself that the Golden Ticket awarded to drafted players was not meant for her.

Then, she turned to see the cameras locked in her direction.

“I had tears in my eyes,” Johnson remembered. “It was the culmination of every person that ever believed in me, all of my fight through adversity. … I made it, all of the things that I went through, all the hurdles I had to jump over, every person that bet on me, this is why they did that.”

Johnson grew up watching pro softball long before she considered it a possible path for herself. The Akron Racers of the former National Pro Fastpitch league played just an hour from her house.

“I have such a unique opportunity,” Johnson said. “I didn't even know if I was going to play my last season of collegiate softball, so to get to play pro, something I've dreamed of since I was 9 or 10 years old, is the ultimate moment.”

She now hopes athletes with chronic illnesses can find what she never had -- high-level examples of athletes who openly balance illness with elite competition, a mission that shapes her advocacy work with the Lupus Foundation of America and her decision to earn a bachelor’s degree with honors in nursing.

“[I am] being vocal about that, so that other kids that are diagnosed with chronic health conditions can still see someone perform within their sport at a high level,” Johnson said. “[So] they know that their diagnosis, a lot of times, is not going to impede them if they have the right physicians and the right support system.”