Casual lunchtime brag turns into halftime show Budget analyst transformed into 'UniHoops' rider and gig took off By ROY BURTON Standard-Examiner staff Whit Johnson describes his side job the way a _ superhero might confess his alter ego. "I'm a budget analyst by day," he says, "but at nighttime, I go out and do basketball halftime shows." Johnson starts his show, UniHoops, by dribbling three basketballs simultaneously, then he climbs on a unicycle to juggle and shoot the basketballs — juggling and jiving to the beat of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music," all while wearing a neon yellow jersey, long shorts and white tube socks pulled up almost to his knees. Johnson's transformation from MBA by day to funky halftime performer started with a little bragging. After watching a Weber State game at the Dee Events Center where acrobat performer Red Panda juggled and balanced huge stacks of bowls while riding an 8-foot-high unicycle, Johnson went to lunch with some coworkers from the WSU budget office. "We were talking about the halftime show, the Red Panda, and I just brought it up: I could do something like that," Johnson said. "They just pushed it off to the side, like, 'Yeah, right, whatever.'" His friends laughed it off and lunch continued, but Johnson quietly went to work without any more bragging. "I got the unicycle out of the basement," he said. "It was the middle of the winter, January 2011." He cleared space in the middle of the living room and started working out a routine, practicing through the spring and summer. The 32-year-old knew something about basketball, having played most his life. He'd picked up a little talent juggling tennis balls as a kid and had even tried riding a unicycle briefly as a teenager, but it wasn't until he put all three together that he became a triple-threat halftime performer. By the fall, he started calling local colleges about doing a show at a women's game for free to get some experience. The first one was at Utah State. "It was a little scary but it was pretty good," Johnson said. "I messed up, obviously, a few times, but that's all part of the learning experience." He hadn't told anyone but his wife Meg until he was ready to unveil his UniHoops show, so nobody had a chance to talk him out of it or tell him he was insane to try. Not even the work friends whose conversation started the whole thing. "They were just laughing about it" when they found out, Johnson See JOHNSON I Page 3B BRIANASGROGGINS/Standard-Examiner Whit Johnson, also known as UniHoops, is a budget analyst for Weber State by day and a juggling unicycle performer by night.