Gymnast Zoya Yaseka Johnson competed for UNC from 2009 to 2012. Since then, she has used her skills and knowledge of the sport to inspire new generations.
Staff writer Tess Alongi spoke with Johnson about her journey of becoming an elite gymnast in the United States, a gymnastic coach and, now, a life coach. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily Tar Heel: What was it like transitioning to life in America after your early childhood in Jamaica?
Zoya Yaseka Johnson: From an early age, it was very apparent that America is where you go if you want opportunity, and so I came up here kind of already knowing that was the case. I was given the decision by my mother when I came to visit her to stay or not. I said, ‘Yeah, I want to stay.’
Not long after that, I discovered gymnastics through my favorite cousin. And then, not long after that, I saw Dominique Dawes on the TV for the '96 Summer Olympics and said, ‘I want to be just like her.’ If luck would have it, I ended up at her gym and I was able to catch the eye of her coach. So, I got to train at a really high level — at the elite level, which is the level in gymnastics where they train you for the Olympics.
I had my heart set on going to the Olympics, but around 16, I kept getting hurt. I realized that I did want some kind of life after gymnastics, so I [shifted] my focus from going to the Olympics to going to college. I was afforded the opportunity to go to many colleges on a full ride. I chose UNC because it felt like there was a really great balance of academic excellence as well as athletic excellence. I loved the teammates that I would be coming in [to].
DTH: How did you get into coaching?
Johnson: I never thought I would be a coach, but my plan to do Cirque du Soleil kind of fell apart after college when I realized that I had residual symptoms from my concussions. I was advised not to train at that same level to stay alive, or at least have the highest quality of life I could have and not subject myself to further injury or just a decline in cognitive health. That kind of prompted me to shift focus from gymnastics at a high level to giving myself an opportunity to just discover who I was outside of the sport and, as I shifted into coaching, focusing on how I could give my athletes a more well-rounded experiene than I had.
DTH: What does the process of building an Olympic program in Jamaica look like? What is your role?
