In order to keep in touch with her Olympic weightlifting past, junior Serena Huang works nine to 16 hours a week as a coaches’ assistant in the Varsity Performance Center (VPC), training and motivating the athletes to push themselves.

“I think this is Serena’s third year helping,” Coordinator of Athletic Training Nikki Webb said of the junior student assistant. “The help that she provides to our strength coaches has become a necessary asset for the athletes. She just knows what she is doing.”

“She’s very positive and motivating,” sophomore Nazzerine Waldon said of Huang. As an injured player on the women’s volleyball team, Waldon says she spends a lot of her time in the training room working on her recovery, “And I can always count on [Huang] to be there to guide me through the movements.”

Although Serena only works between nine and 16 hours a week in the VPC, her impact on the athletes goes beyond the confines of the training room walls.

“It’s about the mentality,” Huang said of her role as the coaches’ assistant. “The head coaches lead them through the lifts, but they don’t necessarily push them to do the extra things. You never know where your limits are, right?”

As a student at NYU’s School of Professional Studies, Huang said her course load has increased exponentially. “I have had to take on a lesser role in the training room this semester, at least in comparison to last semester.”

During the spring semester of 2016, Huang worked every day, occasionally coming in during times that she wasn’t needed so that the athletes could get in a workout.

Former captain of the NYU wrestling team Matt Eulau called Huang a necessary part of his athletic experience. “She made working out fun by making the [VPC] a community,” he said. “It became less of a ‘I’m in practice and it’s all business’ and more of a ‘I can have fun and still
get better.’”

After turning down the opportunity to be a discus thrower for the NYU track and field team, Huang never imagined having any kind of role in the athletics department. But while applying for jobs around campus, Nikki Webb saw Huang’s experience in Olympic weightlifting on her resume and hired her immediately. “She is so competent in her lifting technique. She’s become an effective teacher with a lot of the movements,” Webb said.

Huang said her experience in Olympic weightlifting came from her desire to be a better athlete in high school. “My school’s gym didn’t have the tools necessary for me to become a better athlete,” she said, and so Huang went elsewhere.

Having been through the learning process herself, she says she is able to hone in on the emotional barriers athletes face when struggling through a new skill, and for that reason her motto is, “Well, it never hurts to try.”

“So many people are unsure if they have the ability to go a little harder in their workout,” Huang said. “I guess I just want to be the hype man for whoever lets me.”

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Oct. 17 print edition. Email Rayne Ellis at [email protected].