When Josh Yee says he can’t remember life without gymnastics, he isn’t lying.

When barely a year old, Yee started practicing with his two older brothers with guidance from his mother, who herself was a gymnastics coach.

Twenty years later, Yee still spends nearly every day in the gym, perfecting each routine.

It’s why the 2012 Thompson Academy alumnus is a team captain for the No. 1 ranked Oklahoma men’s gymnastics team.

The Sooners have not lost in more than a year heading into the MPSF Championships this weekend in Palo Alto, Calif.

The bigger event happens two weeks later in Columbus, Ohio, when Oklahoma looks to repeat as national champion and win the program’s 10th overall title in men’s gymnastics.

“Right now it’s all about the team for me,” said Yee, a fourth-year senior who has a redshirt year available if he wants it after sitting his sophomore year. “Selected to be team captain is a big deal for me and so all I want to do is do well and win a conference championship and national championship.”

It’s been a long and tiresome run for Yee, who was his own coach for his entire high school career.

His club coach left Hawaii to take a job at Yale when he was 13 and Yee decided to work out on his own.

He knew he’d have to work harder than everyone else, so he never took days off. Even on Christmas morning, as soon as the presents were opened, Yee was hounding his mother to take him to the gym.

“I’m sure it was a pain for my mom because I didn’t take any days off,” Yee said.

He was able to return the favor one day riding in the car on the way to the gym.

He got a call from Oklahoma coach Mark Williams while sitting in the passenger seat. Williams offered Yee a full-ride scholarship to compete for the top collegiate gymnastics program in the country.

Yee knew his mother was listening to every word he said, so he tried to play it cool. When he got off the phone, he was nonchalant about the news.

“What did he say?” Lori Yee asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Yee replied. “That was just the Oklahoma coach offering me a scholarship.”

There were other schools interested in offering Yee, but he said in gymnastics, getting an offer from Oklahoma is too tough to pass up.

“It’s the real deal here,” Yee said. “Once I got here on a recruiting trip and fell in love with the place … I couldn’t even believe it when Coach offered me a full scholarship. There was no way I could pass it up.”

It also brought something entirely new to Yee.

For years, he had done everything his own way. At Oklahoma, there was Williams and two or three assistant coaches constantly working with their gymnasts.

One of those assistants was Norimasa Iwai, a former Olympian with the Japanese national team.

Iwai took a special interest in Yee but was hard on him from the first day. In the beginning, it was tough for Yee to handle.

“My first year was really tough, not only doing the gymnastics but coming from Hawaii to Oklahoma,” Yee said. “My second year, (Iwai) was really hard on me and I took that whole year as a rebuilding year.

“I always did things my way, and so it was really hard (having coaches), but by the end of my second year, I really bought into it and trusted my coaches and things started clicking.”

The Sooners finished national runner-up in 2014 before winning it all last season. Yee, who was the only freshman to win an event title in 2013, came back from the year off and competed in all 11 meets.

He was named an All-American on the vault after scoring a 14.900 to place fifth at the NCAA Event Finals. He also set a personal-best score of 14.600 on high bar at the MPSF Championships to help OU win the conference title.

Yee was rewarded this year, being named team captain, and has continued to put in the work despite a fractured shin that will need surgery in the offseason.

“I’ve had it for two years and they’re going to have to put a titanium rod in my shin,” Yee said. “I haven’t had the time to get it repaired because it would mean three to four months of recovery time and I don’t have that. I told the coaches I would give everything I had.”

The sport has taken a physical and emotional toll on Yee for his entire life, but being a Sooners gymnast has more than made up for it.

“It’s been a love-hate relationship,” Yee said of gymnastics. “It definitely wasn’t easy and as you get older, things get more serious, but I didn’t want to put in all of those years of work for nothing. I wanted to see if I can make it.”

He definitely has.