Interview with John Beam

We had the privilege of sitting down with Coach Beam to delve into his remarkable personal background and unparalleled professional career.

Please note that HalfKorean.com comments/questions are in BOLD.

Background: The Basics on John Beam

Where were you born and raised?
I was born in San Diego. My dad was in the Navy and my mom was Korean, so right after I was born, my dad wanted to get my mom closer to Korea, so he shipped over as soon as he could to Japan. My first memories are of Japan. I remember living in Japan and, according to my mom, I was fluent in Japanese because we had a Japanese maid. My mom spoke Japanese as well with the maid and I guess I picked it up. I went to a little preschool there and then I moved back to San Diego because my dad had to ship back over. We moved back to San Diego probably around the late spring or early summer and then I started kindergarten. I lived in San Diego until I moved to the Bay Area in 1981.

How did your parents meet?
My dad met my mom in Korea and wanted to get married. But, at that time, they wouldn’t let him. They shipped him back from Korea to the States. He wouldn’t take it, so he came back again and he forced them to allow him to marry my mom. I got a lot of respect for my dad, trying to make that happen, you know? He was bucking the trends, so to speak, at that time. My sister was born in Korea and they moved to the Great Lakes. My dad was from Peoria, Illinois. At that point, my mom wouldn’t let my sister speak Korean anymore. It was a little different back in the Fifties. She wanted to be a good American and assimilate into American culture. She didn’t want to speak Korean and didn’t want my sister to speak Korean. My dad’s parents were very loving and accepting of my mom. My dad would tell the story that my grandfather had a big fish fry every Friday and my mom was the only woman, or any other person, that my grandfather would even let near the fish fryer to help him fry the fish.

How much Korean culture were you exposed to when you were young?
When I got in trouble or did something bad, it would come out. You know what’s funny? Maybe it’s tragic, I don’t know. I didn’t even know what Korean food was when I was growing up. My mom would make food that was more Asian, but it would be a mix of Japanese and Korean. So I didn’t know it was specifically Korean or Japanese. I just thought it was Asian food. So I didn’t know the difference. To me, sushi was kimbap, right? I didn’t know. Figuring out the whole culture a little bit was not easy for me early on. The ironic part was when I moved to San Diego, my next-door neighbor was an old white couple who retired from the Navy but decided to adopt two kids, and they were both Korean Americans from the war. So, here you are in the middle of San Diego with no other Koreans around and yet there are two living next-door to me. One of them was my best friend. He was three years older than me, but we were the same height-wise. I ran around with him like he was my brother growing up. I was with him until he went to college. It was an interesting deal and they had never really eaten Korean food. But when we moved in, my mom would make Asian food. The neighbors next door, the dad, had a big fishing boat and we would go fishing every weekend. My dad would fry the firsh for the whole neighborhood. Everyone would come over and my mom would make Korean food, which I thought was Asian food, but now realized it was Korean food. Everybody would come and bring different dishes. The people next door to my next-door neighbors were from Canada. Next door to the Canadians were two actual Hawaiians. Not mixed as we would think, but Hawaiian. So, I didn’t realize that you distinguish one Asian culture from another. I just knew I was Asian and that was kind of it.

What is your favorite Korean food?
Well, my go-to is bibimbap. When I moved up here, whenever I would go home, my mom would make it for me. After my mom passed away, I would come home and my aunt would have it ready for me. Now you just go to the Korean market and you get everything there. My kids like it. Then I found out about the sizzling bibimbap. I didn’t even know about it until we went to Korea.

When was the last time you have been back to Korea?
Probably when I turned 50. My mom passed away when I was younger and then my dad passed away a while back. After the funeral, my cousins all came down from LA. So think about this, my mom came over to the US and then my mom and dad sponsored most of her cousins or her brothers and sisters to come to the US. My mom, even though she was a woman, was highly revered in the family. My dad was also highly respected because he helped everybody get life started in the US. When he passed, everybody came down and we had a big funeral and the reception afterward. When we all met afterward, we said, “We all need to go back to Korea.” My aunt and uncle said they would go. My sister said she was gonna take her kids. I wanted to take my kids because I hadn’t been back to Korea since I think I was about 10 years old. My sister hadn’t gone back since she left. We were all gonna go and we gave ourselves a year or two to save up money. When it came time to go, it was my 50th birthday, no one had either saved money or wanted to go. I wanted to take my daughters to see where their grandmother was born and where I’m from. I wanted to learn a little bit more about myself, you know? So my wife and I, and my daughters, flew to Seoul, Korea and we stayed for about two weeks. We got to see relatives and visit the city. It was phenomenal. We found out that we are Parks, our last name is Park and we’re one of the original families in Korea. My uncle in LA, who is pretty well off, had our family history. They entrusted me with these books to bring back from Korea to the US. We could trace our history back 2000 years. I’m actually in the book, it was so funny. But the deal was I had to bring them as carry-on, I couldn’t even put it in my luggage. So we did that. I also got to meet my auntie that I hadn’t seen since I was 10 or 11 and my uncle and I went out to where my grandmother was buried. We have a family plot and I could see all of the names on the side of the tombstones with basically everybody in our family lines. It was so cool to see all that. That was about 10 years ago.

That was the last time you have been to Korea?
Yeah. It was ironic, the day that we landed, the ex-president had committed suicide and the guy in the North, the crazy boy, decided to shoot some missiles. We were staying in downtown Seoul and they got the riot police out and I’m sitting there taking my picture with these guys. They are organized rioters, you know what I mean? I was just walking around and having a great time. Also, Laney and Peralta have a partnership with a university in Korea, So I went to visit the school. That’s where I had the first sizzling hot pot. The funny thing is, I’m really big on sesame oil on my bibimbap. But, in Korea, boy, it must be worth a lot of money because they don’t want to give it to you. They won’t even leave you the jar. We ate on the street. We had so much fun meeting with my relatives. We went to Gyeongju and we also went down to Busan. We did the whole thing. I spent time in Seoul and got to see family and see the country. It was a good trip.

You mentioned where you’ve moved around and grew up, then settled in San Diego. You talked about some of the other ethnicities there, did you grow up with any other mixed Koreans specifically at all?
You know what happened was kind of interesting. When I grew up, it was the height of the baby boom, so schools were huge. My elementary school was probably 600-700 kids. Junior high was big and my high school had over 3000 kids from 10th to 12th grade. In kindergarten, I never forgot this, this white girl says, “Hey, what’s wrong with your eyes?” I couldn’t figure that out. I was thinking, “are my eyes different?” You know what I mean? That was kind of tough. When I was in 6th or 7th grade, I was at the beach a lot and hanging out with all my friends. A lot of them had blonde/light hair, and I got dark black hair. My buddy’s brother was like, “Dude, if you take a lemon and you squeeze it on your hair it’ll make your hair blonde.” I was like, “Okay, let’s try.” We didn’t know any better. By the time I got to junior high school, the school became more diverse. Now, I have Guamanian and Filipino friends. It was funny because all of a sudden I’m running into these new friends of mine and a couple of them I knew from Little League baseball were like, “Oh, you got a rice cooker at your house too?” My one friend had a rice dispenser. Yeah, man, you’re big-time! During that time, in the early 60s and 70s, there were no Korean markets. My mom grew a lot of her vegetables. My grandmother would ship some stuff over from Korea, like dry squid. The mailman was a retired Navy guy that kind of knew my dad. Whenever my grandmother sent a package, it kind of smelled, so he would make the first stop at our house to get rid of the smelly packages. We knew that my grandmother sent squid and whatnot. Growing up my breakfast was different in that I didn’t eat cereal. I had hard-boiled eggs sliced up with soy sauce. I had rice and hot water and cut a fish or squid. You’re doing these things at school where we’re trying to figure out if you’re eating healthy. We would work on assignments that asked “what was your breakfast?” but none of the food I ate was on any list. All my friends loved coming to my house. My mom was a phenomenal cook whether there was Korean food or Asian food or just good old American food. They loved that. But she didn’t bake. She wasn’t a baker. We would go to other kids’ homes for baked goods. My mom would run these big wonton-making deals every couple of months, right? So all the neighbors’ moms would come over. They make these giant trays of wonton for everybody. I didn’t know what the different foods were. By the time I got to high school, now I’m playing football. I went to Kearny High (in San Diego), which is a school that at the time was diverse. All my friends were pretty much black and Samoan because that’s who played football and a few white guys. I’m playing Varsity as a 10th grader, 11th and 12th. I’m hanging out with a whole different group of folks. I call myself Hapa now, but back then, I just blended like everybody else. They thought I was maybe Samoan, maybe Filipino, maybe even Mexican. They couldn’t figure out who I was. They would see my dad, a big white guy about 5’11” 250-260lbs, that would be everywhere with me, gave everybody rides, and made sure they had food. They just couldn’t figure us out.

What do people who meet/see you think your ethnicity is?
Until I got to the Bay Area, there are Koreans up here, there weren’t a lot of them in San Diego. But, remember, I’m teaching in East Oakland, right? They really couldn’t figure out who I was. They just didn’t care, you know what I mean? They just said, “Well, you’re just black because, you know, you talk it, you walk it.” No one cared. I mean my mustache kind of gives away that I’m some Asian, but they couldn’t quite figure it out.

Did you ever experience any identity issues while growing up?
I think that my wife was on me a little bit during the show about how no one really knows that I’m Korean. Part of it is because I didn’t know Korean culture really well. I knew the food, but I didn’t know the culture as much. When I was entering high school, my mom brought my uncle, my auntie, and three cousins to the US. We lived together in a three-bedroom, two-bath house. It was a nice house in middle-class America. My sister was already gone and married, so I was the only one there. My grandmother also lived there. One of the biggest memories I have is from when I was in Korea when I was like 11 or 12. I was playing all-star baseball, I’m playing and we’re winning a lot. She doesn’t speak English so she would just sit out on the porch waiting for me to come home. She’s sitting there eating grapes, just waiting for me to come home and she gives me a thumbs up like “Did we win?” I said, “Yeah” and she would give me this big smile. She was in her eighties. It was phenomenal and a fond memory. Unfortunately, she was homesick and she wanted to go back to Korea. So we had to send her home because that’s where she wanted to be. I think I struggled with it a little bit. When I was in junior high school, half my school was from Navy housing. There were black families and brown families. Now you kind of blend in and no one really cared what you were. I remembered one time I had a friend come over and he’s a Hawaiian Filipino guy that lived in Hawaii for a while. He gave me some puka shells. Now, like I’m the coolest guy in the world, because it was different, right? That’s why I think I enjoy going to Hawaii now. In Hawaii, everybody is something different. Hapas, you know, and so it was good. I would think that there were some issues around it a little bit. I didn’t quite know again because I didn’t see a lot of Koreans growing up. The Asians I saw were mainly, I don’t know if I could say it, but, FOBs, you know, fresh off the boat, right? People were like, well are you one of them? I’m, like, one of who? You see who I am, man, you know? Are you kidding? Does this dude look like he just got off a boat man? It was different growing up. I know when I got here and got into the Bay Area got into Oakland again. Oakland has everybody, right?

Football Coach

When and what made you decide to get into coaching?
In my first year, I make all-conference at San Diego Mesa. I was about 6’1″ and probably weighed around 205lbs. Everybody’s giving me these letters because, you know, I’m all-conference on a really good team and a really good conference. They don’t really look at how big I am. I get into my sophomore year and everybody loves me. Then, I get hurt. Halfway through the season, I blew out my knee. Total ACL, the whole nine, medial collateral. Back then, you were in the hospital for a week. I had a cast for eight weeks. So I’m rehabbing, I’m lifting during the whole time I got a cast on because I want to get back to playing. Long story short. I don’t make it back. So I start running. I’m doing everything well but I have a setback and I have to have another knee surgery. I set up the knee surgery appointment and find out I received a scholarship offer from Eastern New Mexico. But, I can’t go because I have to have surgery. So they said, “hey, we’ll have the scholarship for you in January”. So what am I gonna do for the fall? My offensive line coach goes, “hey, look, you need to do this. Go Coach at this high school and be their offensive line coach”. I thought to myself, “go do what?” He says, “you can’t sit here and do nothing, right?” I said, all right, so I did it, work for this guy. Mike Williams. He was a tremendous coach. The school was two or three years old, and we took it to the playoffs. Our second year, we also did really well. I loved it at that time. I was like, hey, I like coaching. I’m gonna be a coach. That’s what I wanna do. And that’s when I met my wife. She was going to UC San Diego.

I go through high school and junior high, right? And, you know, like I said, I’m really good at sports. My physical prowess kind of separates me a little bit from everybody else. Especially when you look different right away. You know, kinda standing out in a good way. I always had good grades but I always got in trouble because of running my mouth or whatever. By the time I graduated high school, I graduated with honors. After graduation, people would ask, what are you gonna do after graduation? We were either gonna play football at city college or we were gonna be tuna fishermen. First time out on a boat, you could make 20 or 30 grand for four months. Right? Right. Luckily, I didn’t do that. I went to college and I played football. I’m doing well in school and then I met Cindy, my wife. She’s at UC San Diego. We hit it off.

Neither of my parents graduated high school. My dad didn’t graduate high school, he went into the Navy. My mom didn’t go to high school in Korea so they wanted me to go to school. At that point I thought, I could do this. Cindy moved to go to Berkeley and I decided I’m gonna go to San Diego, I went for a semester and ended up finishing my degree at Cal State Hayward. Then I decided I was going to start the credential program the next fall. So I started subbing in Oakland, you know, easy money because no one wants to sub in Oakland. I worked every day, and then I got a long-term sub job teaching math. Then the next thing you know, I’m being asked to coach. So I went over there, met the head coach and he goes all right, I think I have a job for you. That was in May. He doesn’t say anything until August. He goes, yeah, you could be the defensive coordinator. All right, well, listen, I’m the D coordinator. I’ve never coached defense, right? Three years of offensive line but now I’m the defensive coordinator. I did that for five years. In the third year (1984), we went 10 and 0, we beat De La Salle High (Concord, CA). You know, I figured it out because I’m a competitive guy. Sure, I’m doing research, and, you know, we did great. Then I became the head coach of Skyline.

You were a very successful high school coach, when did you decide to move on to the college level?
I didn’t lose a game in the 1990s. I needed a new challenge but I didn’t want to go to Division One at that point. What happened was I got offered a job at Clovis West High School (Fresno, CA). If you know anything about Clovis, they’re like, hyper, you know, uber-competitive in sports and anything they do. They offered me the job and my wife and my daughter agreed to go. But I came home from work one day, and my wife had been crying all day, saying she didn’t want to leave. So I said, alright, we won’t go. Well right after that, the Laney job opened up. So I applied and I got the job. So it worked out perfectly. And it’s so funny because the head coach that was stepping down was a Japanese American. Him and I got along for years, right? We could relate to each other, it was a perfect fit for us.

When you initially started coaching at Laney, what was your position?
Well, the first year, I didn’t get hired until June so I was running backs coach. I coached running backs for one year and then the next year, in January I became the Offensive Coordinator and we went nine and two. We wanted to beat the undefeated team in the bowl game, but we just got rocked.

How supportive has your wife and family been of your coaching career?
My wife is a therapist, she supports me, especially with my mental health. We have a great balance, she grounds me and helps to make sure I am learning and cognizant of everything.

Being of mixed race, do you feel it has had any effect on your coaching career?
When I started coaching in Oakland and teaching in Oakland, kids don’t see color, man. What they see is “will you show up and do what you say you’re gonna do”. When that phone rings at 3am, do you pick it up and go help? Someone just got shot in their neighborhood or you go see them because their mom just tried to commit suicide and they don’t know what to do. That’s what they see. They see when you go to their church function and be a part of the community. We’ve always gone to stuff in Oakland. We don’t have any problem with that. We fit in, right? You’re either gonna do it or you’re not. That’s what it is. So for me it’s always been put up or shut up, right?

I think identity issues growing up, you know, it was all about action, not about words. So you look at me, you don’t know what I am, but do I do what I say I’m gonna do? I think that’s what it was more about. I know we should be more sensitive about it, but you know what? I think I get it for my mom’s Korean side. My mom was a tough woman. Boy, you know, she wouldn’t take shit from anybody. I think I have a temper and that’s from my Korean side, you know? Got that kimchi temper. I think it was just more that maybe there was a chip on my shoulder because people didn’t know, so I was gonna have to prove them wrong. I’m playing football with white, black, and Samoan kids. And here’s this mixed-race guy trying to show that he belongs, right? I remember I had about a year or two in college where I was working at this Chinese market in San Diego called Woochi Chong. It was the biggest market in San Diego. I’d meet all these guys, but even when I walk in, the Mexican workers in the back would speak to me in Spanish, thinking I was Mexican. And the Chinese guys in the front would talk to me in Chinese or Cantonese. You know Shanghai, right? Like, wait a minute. I’m not either guys, I’m neither. Can I just get a plate? Even then they couldn’t figure out who I was. And I was fine. Because, you know, I wanted you to know me, not my race. That was important for me.

Any particular student-athlete/s you are most proud of having coached?
I am proud of everybody and it was all different. For example, there were these two kids, Jason Brown and Josh Kim. Those guys busted their asses in a way that you wouldn’t know that they were these Korean kids. They bought into it, right? I had these two kids at Skyline High. The Lee brothers, Michael and Richard Lee, two Chinese kids. They wanted to play football, and by the time they left, one was the starting center and one was starting inside backer they both could bench over 300 pounds. They were just tremendous kids. They played on one of my undefeated teams with guys that played in the NFL. These two started. They had all the respect in the world from every kid at Skyline, even though there were two Chinese American kids that anywhere else would have been made fun of. Because of what they did, no one bothered them. They’re both police officers now. Those are the things that you love. Let’s get away from labels. I know we want to and I want to, but sometimes just label us human beings. What can we do, right? Let’s make us all great, right? And so that was good for me. I mean, it was a time to see that.

Last Chance U:

How did the Last Chance U opportunity happen?
I got an email from the guy from Last Chance U asking have you heard about Last Chance, would you be interested in a conversation? I’m like, yeah, right. I show my wife and daughters, they’re all cracking up. My youngest daughter said, “Dad, you gotta do this, you know?” So I go to call the guy and it is a bad number. Oh, someone pranked me. You know what I mean? They pranked me. Eventually we do have a conversation. They said they’ve been to other places that were in rural areas in the middle of nowhere. They wanted to come to California because JC football is so different here. No scholarships, no dorms, no meal plan. They wanted to do something in an urban setting, maybe a city versus out in the sticks or the suburbs here in California. Then they said they wanted to work with someone that has established records of these young guys just starting off or whatever. I guess I checked all the boxes. They showed up in the spring to do a walk-through with people just to get a feel and they loved the vibe that we had. They loved my vibe. I guess they went to go have lunch and they asked someone, hey, have you ever heard of this coach? Coach Beam? Everybody knew who I was. They said, well, wait a minute, this guy really is embedded in the community. So I thought it turned out great. Even though I don’t have a lot of the Korean culture that I was born with, I have this pride for it now that I want to try to embrace. I wanted people to see that you can be a coach, right? And not be white or black. You could be different. You could be Hapa. So the guy that comes up, that feels like he doesn’t belong can understand that you can belong. You’re setting that first step for everyone else?

Having a camera crew and all that around, did you feel like you had to adjust anything? As far as your coaching, your style whatnot?
Yes. I still use the f-word. I am who I am. This is what I’ve been doing for 40 years. You can’t change me. I’m gonna hug the kids up. I’m gonna ride them. I’m gonna set the bar high. I’m gonna have high expectations for them. If they fall, I will pick them up and try to help them.

Did LCU accurately portray your relationships with players and coaches?
Every Thursday, I bring in guest speakers to talk about life after football. They didn’t show that part. I wanted to showcase my ex-players, like Mike Norris, who is a doctor. Here’s a black kid who’s a doctor now, right? Kevin Parker came in and he talked about his dyslexia. They didn’t show that. He said he couldn’t read. He was afraid to let people know so he got kicked out of class on purpose because he didn’t want to let people know. Now he’s doing $200 million commercial real estate deals. Fred Shavies is a policeman. Rodney Campbell showed up, he’s written three books, and the first time a gun was ever put to his head was by a policeman because he was walking across the street. They put a gun to his head for no reason. They didn’t show that. I want our players to see that. People aren’t always there, but family ties are huge in the Samoan and Tongan communities. Family is really important to me. So hopefully that came out. I’m just kind of curious because obviously, they got the story that they got to tell, right? So just wondering if that kind of relates better than what they showed. RJ said the same thing to me when it came out.

What kind of reception did you receive after being featured on Last Chance?
It was in the top five for a long time, trending and then top three. All the newspapers from The New York Times, Esquire, they all loved what we did or how we were portrayed. Sean Payton, head coach of the New Orleans Saints, reached out to me. We’ve known each other for 27 years and we lost touch. He is like, Oh my God, my son wants to coach and he asked his son, “do you want a coach like Coach Beam?” He said he just wanted to tell me that he wanted his son to be a coach like me. Those are awesome things. Then people are reaching out to me from guys I grew up with, right? I mean, back in 2nd and 3rd grade. There was a girl in elementary school, third grade, she hit me up saying, “hey, you know, awesome”. One of the players from my first year in San Diego hit me up. It was just unbelievable seeing kids I taught in Oakland. One woman reached out and said that there was at least twice during her time in junior high that I saved her life. And now she was on the red carpet. She was up for an Oscar last year or something. You don’t realize the impact you make on people’s lives but you get to find out now because of this show.

What are your thoughts on the pandemic and its effect on football? (Note: Q&A was from August 2020)
We are trying to have our protocols in place. We’re trying to figure it all out, but it’s gonna be tough, you know? To be honest, I think, we need to figure out how to get testing done inexpensively and get results quickly. I don’t know if we need a vaccine necessarily, but we need to do this thing right. High school, college, or whoever, right? Hopefully by getting everybody tested quickly we can have a better plan. You know, I heard the NBA has something, a large amount of money to spend on testing. But not all schools will be able to spend that type of money. Then think about this for a minute. If I’m an Alabama football player, I could get tested anytime, multiple times even, and get the result back. But the rest of the state can’t do that, right? You know, your grandmother can’t get tested, but the kid in Alabama can. How would you feel about that? What I’m trying to do and have my coaches do is just keep an eye on our players and help them through mental health issues. Right now, you know, depression, because they don’t know what’s happening, they don’t know their futures. These kids all came to Laney to get a scholarship, you know what I mean? That’s just being honest. They didn’t come just to get the education, they came to get a scholarship. Now, are they gonna be able to play in order to get a scholarship? That’s what they’re worried about. At the same time, many of their parents lost their jobs and are not working. So no money at home and they’re worrying about how they’re gonna make it. All of that is what I’m more worried about. Additionally, you have kids that were marginal students, they don’t have great time management skills. Now they have to go online and do a class? Yeah, that’s gonna be tough, so it is difficult all around.

What do you do to relax? On Last Chance, it seems like you do a lot of walks with your wife.
That’s the first thing, right? It takes a lot of time, but we have our morning walks for the two of us to connect every day. We start the day with each other, just, you know, sounding board talk. Just regroup. One week before the season starts, I’m either in San Diego or Hawaii. I’m always in Maui, right? I do try to make sure that I am able to recharge. The best way for me is to be in the water and the islands. We were supposed to go to Rome and London for spring break this year (2020). Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to go. Two years ago we went to Australia for two weeks. I’m a certified diver so I got the barrier reef off my bucket list. I wanna do things around the ocean, you know, the water. We’ve been to Japan. My daughter studied abroad in Japan when she was at Stanford. We visited her in Japan and from there we went to Korea. During the football season, my wife got to go to London with my oldest daughter for work. It was a chance for her to hang out and bond with our daughter. Those are the things that we try to do, mainly around family.

Anybody in particular you respect/look up to?
Well, I always talk about my mom and dad, right? They gave me foundation and sacrificed so that I could get to college. They were there for all my sporting games growing up and made sure I could play. I always start with them, and my sister has always been there as well. I was fortunate to have had a really good coach in high school that taught me how to win. He also taught me how to care for people, right? He talked to me about going to college. Mike Williams gave me this unbelievable foundation as a coach, learning X’s and O’s. Those have been the folks. A lot of the folks have been just a kid that I’ve coached over the years, taught over the years. They have given me so much, taught me how to be humble, taught me how to have fun, and taught me to embrace and accept people that look different like I do to them. You know what I mean, right? That’s been a big part of it. I mean, I’ve been accepted in the city of Oakland for who I am. And they allow me to, in essence, work with their kids and hopefully make a change and be a part of that transformation. I think it’s a two-way street.

Any words that you would like to pass on to the mixed Korean and Hapa community?
Yeah, I think that if you grew up like I did, try to learn about Korean culture. Don’t miss it like I did. Be proud of who you are and the blend of who you are. It makes you even stronger because I think that you’re a blend not just one or the other, right? It’s a blend of things that makes steel strong. Being half Korean and half white has made me who I am, stronger in some ways and able to think and navigate multiple cultures. I learned from my Korean side, so much about family and how much they care. There’s fierce loyalty as well, right? That’s something I think I gathered. So, embrace that part of you.

We thank Coach Beam for his time to do this interview with us and wish him continued success!

You can follow Coach Beam via his official Website, Instagram, and Twitter.

Interview by: David Lee Sanders
Posted: 7/24/2023

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