The fourth- and fifth-graders arrived, and suddenly the gym at Nellie Stone Johnson Elementary School in Minneapolis echoed with sneakers squeaking and balls bouncing. Then, grinning, Michelle Young grabbed her own ball — and the kids' attention.
The space quieted as the kids mirrored her, looping the basketballs around their waists, their ankles and between their legs.
Young often commands a crowd. That same week, wearing shimmering dresses, she would emcee a wine festival and an awards dinner. In those spaces, she's Michelle Young, former star of "The Bachelorette" and a runner-up on "The Bachelor." Here in the gym, wearing Converse high-tops, she's Miss Young.
Her season of the ABC-TV reality dating show , which premiered in 2021, leaned into her identity as a fifth-grade teacher. The promo featured her plucking an apple from a desk and tossing it into the air. So when, in 2022, she announced that she'd be leaving the classroom, some people in the show's massive and passionate fan base, known as "Bachelor Nation," slammed her for it.
To them, it seemed that she was yet another reality-star-turned-influencer, ditching her job for Instagram fame and trading Minnesota for Los Angeles.
"And for me, it was that I was stepping away for my mental health," said Young, 31. Like many other teachers across the country, she'd been experiencing burnout so bad it had left her physically and emotionally spent. "And if those who are following me think I'm less genuine because I'm not in the classroom ...," she shook her head. "I'm not less valuable because I'm not in the classroom."
The Woodbury High School grad had also been readying her next move, one that would bring her back to working with kids: the Michelle Young Foundation , her nonprofit, and Homework and Hoops, an after-school program she started this spring. But she did that work quietly, doggedly, without posting about it on social media. A silent workhorse, as her dad always called it.
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