Photo provided by Colin Yarnelle
Michigan CIty defensive backs coach Colin Yarnelle (left) celebrates with City’s Emarion Hodgson during the Wolves’ win at the 2021 Class 5A regional football game in Valparaiso, Ind.
MCAS teacher/coach Colin Yarnelle impacts youth through dedication
By Batoul Achy
Staff Writer
MICHIGAN CITY – Many people sit and watch the world go by, while Colin Yarnelle stands up to make a change.
Yarnelle, 32, is the defensive backs coach for the Michigan City High School football team, and is a computer science teacher at Krueger Middle School.
He’s motivated by God, love and curiosity to make a difference in the lives of others.
“I do what I do because I love life,” Yarnelle said. “Waking up everyday is not an, ‘Oh no, here we go another day again.’ Everyday I wake up I’m like, ‘Oh, I wonder what’s gonna happen today.’”
Yarnelle is successful with the Wolves, who made it to the IHSAA Class 5A semistate game in 2021. Equally as important, he has made a huge impact on his students by being open minded, fun and interactive.
“He keeps a conversation going, and when you ask questions he will actually answer in a way I can understand,” said eighth grader Arianna Latourette.
Yarnelle was a part of a middle class family and grew up in Griffith, Ind. He was the oldest of three siblings, not including his older half brother who lived in Fort Wayne.
His parents got divorced when he was in fifth grade, but Yarnelle said besides that his upbringing was normal. His father left a big impact on his life.
“My dad was a huge inspiration for me growing up, because he provided everything for our family that we needed,” Yarnelle said.
Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre also played a role in Yarnelle’s childhood.
“Brett Favre was a big inspiration for me, because he had so much fun playing professional football,” he said.
Photo of a photo provided by Colin Yarnelle
Yarnelle (right) has a meal with his brothers, Troy (left) and Clayton.
Having an energetic personality, he quickly latched onto football. He took a lot from football like discipline, structure and hardwork.
“I’ve always been kind of an all-over-the-place type of person, and football got me to focus in and control myself,“ Yarnelle said.
Yarnelle played football at Griffith High School under the famous coach Russ Radtke. He learned competition, camaraderie and community.
“It was learning how to push aside being tired so you could go one more play for the guy next to you,” he said.
When he was a junior he completed the IRONMAN challenge in Griffith’s weightroom.
The amount of weight lifted for the challenge was determined by one’s body weight and age. Yarnelle had to complete the following with 155-pound weights: 30 deadlift repetitions, 25 parallel squat reps, 12 bench press reps and 12 clean and jerk reps.
He also had to do 150 situps and 27 dips, as he was 17 years old and the number of dips required was 10 plus the person’s age.
There was a board in the weight room that had names since 1992 of athletes who completed the challenges. Yarnelle was proud to have his name on the list.
“It was the first time in my life that I set a big goal, a difficult goal and didn’t stop ‘til I got there,” he said.
He depended on his friend group in Griffith, but when he moved to Fort Wayne in his senior year his eyes opened to new possibilities. It taught him who his real friends were and how to make new ones.
After high school, Yarnelle went to Purdue Calumet to major in history. While there, he made a decision to give back to the youth by voluntarily coaching football at Griffith.
In 2012, Yarnelle met coach Roy Richards while coaching with him at Morton High School in Hammond.
Richards was impressed with Yarnelle from the time they met.
“I respected his passion,” Richards said. “I admired his energy and interest in learning and his knowledge of the game.”
Coaching let Yarnelle know he was good with kids, which led him to become a teacher.
“I started to hear everyone in college, everyone my age, everyone talking about how millennials and young people are ruining the world,” Yarnelle said. “And so instead of contributing to the complaining about that, I decided that I would rather try to do something to change that.”
Photo of a photo provided by Colin Yarnelle
Colin Yarnelle (front row, right) with his family around Christmastime in 2019.
He started teaching at Barker Middle School in 2017, a year after he joined the Michigan City High School football coaching staff.
Yarnelle approached both roles with the same mindset.
“The process for getting ready for them, to me, is the same thing,” he said. “You have to put the time in, you have to have a plan, you have to be prepared to execute the plan.”
Two of Yarnelle’s identifiable traits are that he’s hard working and has the curiosity to prepare for classes and games.
“He’s always been somebody who’s going to do his homework on anything and everything he’s interested in,” said Brian Little, Yarnelle’s close friend from high school.
That homework can be on anything from football to historical video games.
“I’m a nerd about history,” he said. “I love it.”
Yarnelle became a computer science teacher at Krueger in 2021, and his students have noticed his love for history.
“Mr. Yarnelle eats like he’s from the 1800s, so what really impacts me about that is that outside of living history he brought a plastic container of cheese and dates,” said eighth grader Haley Barnes. “And also he eats rice and lamb everyday. So it makes me think, what if I could learn something from him, like what if he’s on the right path to life?”
Eighth grader Camden Taylor’s first impression of Yarnelle was that he was “a weird, country hillbilly man.”
“Yeah, his hair is interesting… I like him a lot now,” Camden said. “He’s funny, he’s cool, and always been one of my faves since day one.”
He was described as a “rockstar” by eighth grader Emmanuel Sanchez.
“Me and Mr. Yarnelle, we rock out to his music and rocking out makes his class enjoyable,” Emmanuel said. “Oh yes, he’s Shaggy to my Scooby.”
Just as he does with his students, he impacts his athletes and others around him.
Richards mentioned that Yarnelle plays a big part in the school and football team.
“He’s good at what he does and that’s what makes our schools and our teams good, is when you got adults that take pride in being professional and (are) good at what they do,” Richard said. “I think Colin Yarnelle is right up there with everybody.”
Yarnelle believes that people can be more than what meets the eye.
“I try to motivate others by pulling out the good things I see within them,” he said. “Not everyone believes in themselves and so I try to pull things out of people that I see in them that they might not see themselves.”
At the same time, he follows a more practical approach.
“My least favorite thing that I was told growing up was to chase your dreams, because you have to be asleep to believe them and we don’t live in a sleeping world,” he said. “We live in a world that’s awake, and you have to be real with yourself to get somewhere in reality.”
No matter what, Yarnelle is willing to help people make better versions of themselves.
“I try to help people as much as I can, because in turn of helping others it makes the world a better place, which makes my life better,” he said. “So even though it is a little bit selfish, I like pushing and helping people to be better because it makes everything better for everyone.
“At the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”