So many chalkboard champions have earned recognition in fields other than education, and Al Young is a great example of this. Al taught high school in Seattle, Washington, for thirty-seven years, but he is also famous as a former world champion drag racer.
Alfred John Young, a Chinese American, was born in 1946 in Whittier, California. His father was a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and later a businessman; his mother was an artist and art collector. Al and his two siblings were raised in San Francisco, where Al graduated from George Washington High School. After his high school graduation, he enrolled at the University of Washington where he majored in English literature. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1968 and his master’s degree in 1972.
After his college graduation, Al served for many years as a teacher, tutor, counselor, and advocate for the Upward Bound program. He also founded one of Seattle’s first alternative schools, the Summit K-12 School, in 1972. In the thirty-seven years that this gifted teacher worked in Seattle public schools, Al instructed vocational courses such auto shop and physical education, electives such as film study and Chinese cooking, and rigorous academic courses such as history, AP American government, and AP comparative government and politics. He has also served as the adviser to school teams that participated in the Chrysler Trouble Shooting contests, YMCA Mock trial competitions, Junior State of America conventions, and he has led high school groups to the South Pacific and Washington D. C. for close-up learning. During his teaching career, this remarkable educator also coached volleyball, softball, and basketball.
In the world of drag racing, Al competed in Pro Bracket racing. He has won the American Hot Rod Association World Championship, and between the years of 1976 and 1996, he twice won major drag racing events, and three times was declared the winner of Bremerton Raceway’s Day Fire Nationals. In 1988, Al was inducted into the Firebird Raceway Bracketeer All-Stars in Boise, Idaho. Al has also been involved with the preparation of classic high performance race cars.
Al Young has been honored as one of Seattle Public Schools’ “Heroes in the Classroom” by such entities as Vulcan, Inc., Russell Investments, and the Seattle Seahawks organization. In 2008, this accomplished chalkboard champion retired from the teaching profession. His wife, Vicki Johnson Young, is also a retired school teacher, having taught in the Seattle public school system for twenty-eight years. As retirees, Al and Vicki have driven throughout the United States and Canada in their 1973 Plymouth Roadrunner Muscle car. Al has also practiced martial arts and actively served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle and worked for the Chinese Historical Society of America.
