The bright lights hum as music blares through the Leonard Center gym on a crisp, fall Friday morning. While the dawn casts pink light over Shaw Field, hexbars slam to the ground after each repetition. Across the gym, water polo team members power through their morning lift as volunteer Sport Performance Coach Johnny Yang rotates between stations. Between sets, he encourages athletes by emphatically clapping and shouting, “Chest up!”
While Yang demands focus, he seeks discipline from Macalester athletes—a trait he worked to develop in himself. That sense of focus wasn’t always an easy target for Yang. As a teenager in East St. Paul, he began building that drive on the high school football field.
Each summer, Yang attended football camp, usually on the hottest days. To help players adjust, coaches ran practices twice a day, testing endurance in the heat. Even getting to practice was difficult; Yang often walked 30 minutes each way to the school for training.
“If I [were] lucky enough, my older brother [or my mom] would pick me up,” Yang said.
Yet Yang attended every session. His pride and will to improve fueled him through each drill.
“I really wanted to push myself,” he said.” “I didn’t care if I was going to play or start.”
These lessons in resilience soon proved critical beyond the football field.
Arriving at Bethel University was another milestone toward resilience.
Yang found both consistency and support to be difficult as he struggled to find a rhythm as a student.
“I was probably the least-disciplined student, academically, physically,” Yang said.
Yang faced a steep learning curve as a first-generation student. His parents could not advise him on college life, so he had to navigate much of the process on his own. On move-in day, while his parents were at work, his pastor drove him to campus.
Yang also encountered economic strain. He pleaded with his father to co-sign a loan for tuition, trying to convince him that college was a tangible opportunity and not a scam, despite his father’s beliefs. It wasn’t until his father visited Bethel’s campus that he realized college was worthwhile. Afterwards, Yang’s father decided to co-sign.
In his junior year of college, he faced a far greater challenge. While playing basketball, Yang noticed a pain in his leg. After getting tested, Yang was diagnosed with Compartment Syndrome, a condition in which muscles constrict, limiting blood flow. If the muscle doesn’t receive enough oxygen, the muscle dies.
The next day, Yang went to the emergency room, and doctors immediately began treating the leg. Yang remembered the doctors telling him that there was a chance of amputation.
After a successful surgery, Yang relied on a wheelchair for three months. Without health insurance, his wound couldn’t be fully closed, leaving a deep incision that required daily care with gauze and saline solution.
Physical recovery was slow. Unable to afford physical therapy, Yang created his own regimen. Without the proper recovery and oversight from professionals, Yang said he still suffers today from a loss of sensation in his leg.
While Yang focused on physical recovery, life brought a second, heartbreaking setback. In April, an act of gun violence killed his father in Anoka County, which is still a cold case. This loss hit Yang particularly hard since he was working to repair his relationship with his father.
“Toward the end of his life, before he passed away, we were starting to rekindle that bond and reconcile some things,” Yang said. “Sadly, it was during that time that he passed away, and I think I was just in a really dark time and moment.”
Due to all these events, Yang couldn’t continue his tutoring job. To help him pay his college tuition and medical bills, his friends rallied and set up a fundraiser. Others tried to console Yang, often telling him that taking a break from school may be beneficial.
While his newfound challenges clouded over him, it didn’t break his spirit. He graduated on time and became a student leader in his senior year. According to Bethel’s website, Yang won the school’s President’s Student Leadership Award for his civic work within the Frogtown community. These experiences reinforced the idea that discipline aligns with perseverance.
Yang’s resilience extends beyond the gym and academics to his heritage. His family identifies as Hmong, an Indigenous group from Southeast Asia. Although the Twin Cities have the country’s largest urban Hmong community, as a child, Yang felt ashamed of his background. He recalled that students mocked his language and food.
In high school, Yang’s perspective changed. He learned about the hardships the Hmong people endured, such as displacement and political persecution. He explored his roots through movies and music, noticing how proud his friends were of their own cultural identities. Slowly, he realized he wanted to take pride in his as well.
Yang continues to strengthen his ties to his Hmong heritage. For him, embracing Hmong culture isn’t just pride, but a way to honor a community that has been historically underrepresented. “We come from all sorts of places and things that we’re humble in, but also the practices, the cultural things that we practice are very beautiful,” Yang said. “The language of [our] different instruments or poetry, and so I just try to retain that information and retain that culture, and also try to share that with people who aren’t familiar, and also try to celebrate that and try to practice that, too, even just by listening to Hmong music or connect with other Hmong folks or Hmong artists.”
Yang utilizes these experiences to support Macalester students. In addition to volunteering as a coach, Yang also works at Macalester as the Residence Hall Director (RHD) for Bigelow, Bowman and Wallace Halls.
“That’s why I like my job here as a part of supporting the students [and being part of] the resources on campus,” Yang said. “It’s not perfect at all, but the fact that we have people, professionals you can talk to, whether that’s confidential or not, it’s another outlet for students to go to for support.”
Similarly, Yang has left a sizable impression on the students he coaches, along with teaching his virtues of discipline.
“He’s always really proactive, wanting you to be the best athlete you can be,” Mak Kratz ’28, a water polo athlete, said. “He’s accommodating when you need [him] to be, but he also allows you to push yourself, which I feel some people are scared to do, but he encourages it.”
“Johnny just overall is really encouraging when we lift. He’s always pushing us to go heavier, do our best,” water polo athlete Alya Reynolds ’28 said.
Workouts aren’t always a serious matter to Yang. Moves from classic dance songs like “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” accompany the morning stretches, a new tradition spurred by first-years on the water polo team.
At the end of each practice, Yang finishes with a cheer. But while the weights may rest, Yang knows that the work never stops.
