Honolulu-born Ryan Shimabukuro is proving he can make seemingly impossible dreams possible. After all, he’s lived it.

Shimabukuro, in his 24th year of coaching, returned as the head coach of the U.S. speedskating team after a disappointing 2018 Games and resurrected the program, with the squad earning three individual medals, including a history-making gold by Erin Jackson. On Feb. 13, Shimabukuro and Jackson celebrated on the ice with the American flag as she became the first Black woman to earn a speedskating medal.

But that’s just recent history, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Go back to the beginning and you’ll see a tale of survival, guts, determination and remarkable resolve.

Born with collapsed lungs and given little chance to live a month, Shimabukuro would say he was “a miracle baby.”

“Doctors told my mom that I would never play normal sports. I guess they were right since speedskating isn’t normal for Hawaii, haha!” Shimabukuro wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Saturday in China.

Almost as miraculous was what followed.

Smitten as a youth by U.S. speedskater Eric Heiden, who won five golds while wearing a gold suit at the 1980 Games, Shimabukuro took to the ice with a fervor fueled by a dream so big that fulfilling it would be a miracle on ice. He made a tough decision to leave Hawaii in 1989 during his sophomore year at Moanalua High School to chase his Olympic dream.

His competitive career was beset by a few mishaps, including a broken ankle during a collision with a competitor and another incident where the tip of a competitor’s skate pierced his chest. Still, the 5-foot-7 Shimabukuro managed to compete in two Olympic trials, finishing 10th in 1994 and sixth in 1998, where he missed the top four qualifying spots by a second.

His everlasting love for the sport carried him further — Shimabukuro has become one of the world’s top speedskating coaches while still overcoming every ordeal, including a heart attack in 2019.

It’s a testament to Shimabukuro’s willpower, and he is eager to deliver a life lesson to anyone reluctant to reach for that proverbial unreachable star.

“You gotta be willing to take that first step,” Shimabukuro said in a Zoom interview with the Star-Advertiser in between training sessions in Beijing on Thursday. “No matter how scary it may be, no matter how foreign or unknown the territory and uncharted waters may be, you gotta take that first step.

“I remember the day I left when I was 15 in January ’89 to go to Marquette, Mich. (site of the Olympic training center). When they called my row to get on the airplane, I didn’t want to get on. I was so scared. I was crying, and all my friends and family were there to see me off.

“But you know what? The Olympics is a symbol of chasing your dreams, and sometimes that’s not always easy. It’s not always fun. You have to be resilient. And you have to persevere through the hard times because the journey will not always be a linear rise to the top.”

You can’t argue with his message or with his results.

After coming up short in his personal Olympic quest, Shimabukuro stopped competing in 1998, but by then, he had already drawn the attention of U.S. speedskating officials because of his work ethic, attention to detail and passion to improve.

He was hired by U.S. Speedskating in 1998 as the Midwest Regional Development Coach and took on the additional duties of the Junior National Team from 1999 to 2002. He was later elevated to U.S. Speedskating head coach after the Salt Lake Games in 2002.

He has been to five Olympic Games and coached three gold medalists: Joey Cheek (500 meters) in 2006, Shani Davis (1,000 meters) — who in 2006 became the first Black person to win individual gold at the Winter Olympics — in 2010 and Jackson (500 meters) at Beijing.

All have glowing opinions of their coach.

“There’s no one on the ice who dedicates their lives more to the sport than Ryan,” Davis said in a 2012 Sports Illustrated article. “I like Ryan as a coach and as a real positive role model and figure. He’s been there for all the athletes. We try to reciprocate that love and mutual respect for him when we skate hard and get our results.”

After the 2014 Olympics, Shimabukuro took on another venture, accepting a job as the national team coach in Japan.

“I was supposed be there for four years but resigned after one year,” Shimabukuro said.

He returned to the states and said he wasn’t going to coach anymore.

“But then I coached privately for that season and the next two seasons I had a different role coaching a transition program, meaning I took inline skaters from the U.S. and other countries and transitioned them to the ice,” he said. “In 2018, I had five skaters from three different countries competing in South Korea — one was Erin Jackson at the time.”

In fact, two other medalists he coached in these Olympics — Joey Mantia and Brittany Bowe — are former inline skaters.

After the U.S. failed to win any individual speedskating medals in the 2018 Pyeong­chang Winter Olympics, Shimabukuro was asked to return to U.S. speedskating as the head coach.

Success, and medals, followed, with his team earning three medals after the U.S. got just one in the previous two Winter Olympics combined.

Shimabukuro said there is no real secret to his success.

“I always said my philosophy is the definition of success is hard work over a long period of time,” he said. “I’m not a person that looks for the instant gratification. Speedskating is a very, very demanding sport, and it takes time to develop the skills, the physiology and the technique for someone to compete at this level.

“I guess patience and compassion for my team, because I understand that this sport will take you through a lot of emotional and physical roller-coaster rides, so you have to be patient and you gotta to play the long game.”

That’s what seemingly happened to Mantia and Bowe.

Mantia led a bronze-medal effort in the men’s team pursuit.

It was his third Olympic Games but his first medal. And at 36 years, 8 days, he is the oldest medalist in team pursuit.

Bowe won a bronze in the 1,000-meter event. It was her first individual medal after coming up empty individually in two previous Olympics.

Seeing the results of a medal, especially a gold like Jackson’s, remains a thrill to Shimabukuro.

“Each gold is unique in its own way, obviously the thrill of seeing your athlete’s name at the top of board and seeing that gold placed around their neck and hearing the national anthem. It’s a great sense of pride, joy, relief,” he said. “It’s more for them, because they are the ones who had to perform when it counted.

“The only difference (among these Olympics is) you only had Chinese crowds, spectators. It’s different in that aspect, where they don’t get to share it right then and there with their families. NBC had a TV booth where they could wave and talk to them, which was a great alternative. But in a lot of ways, it’s not the same. Not having that connection with their family and friends, which I feel for them.”

Shimabukuro’s journey does not end in Beijing.

The team goes straight to Norway for the World Championships the first weekend in March. The group will then go to the Netherlands for the World Cup final the week after.

“(I) haven’t had a day off in four weeks, and I won’t have a day off until the season ends on March 14,” he said.

It doesn’t sound like a healthy routine for someone who suffered a heart attack.

“I had it on Memorial Day 2019,” he said. “I had one stent put in to open up the blockage in my heart. And I spent two months doing cardiac rehab.”

When he returned, the coach, now 48, knew he needed to lighten his workload. He said he tries to minimize his 15- to 20-hour days. “Back in the day, such days would be like months long,” he said.

“So far, knock on wood, my health has been good,” he added.

Mantia recently told The Associated Press, “He’s so passionate as a person and as a coach, he wants to be at the rink 24/7, doing everything, always taking on the entire load of the whole organization.

“Now, I think he’s got things a little more in perspective. And by no means does that mean he’s not coaching to his potential or that it feels like he’s any less of a coach. I think he’s found a way to balance the coaching and being healthy and managing the stress of his life. We all love him. We want him to be healthy.”

While Shimabukuro and the team will return to the U.S. on or after March 14, he said he doesn’t know when his next visit back home will be.

“It’s been tough to get back,” said Shimabukuro, who resides in Layton, Utah, where the U.S. team is based. “My wife’s from Japan and her parents are getting older now too, so (we) try to save some vacation time if we gotta go over.”

Shimabukuro did return last July for his best friend’s wedding. Other than that, he said it’s been about six years since he’s been back.

But he fondly recalls one of his best learning experiences came as a 12- to 13-year-old in Hawaii.

“I was a paperboy for the Star-Bulletin,” he said. “It’s something I wanted to do. I tell this to people that you don’t really see paperboys or papergirls anymore.

“I feel like being a paperboy really taught me the value of responsibility and maturity and how to manage money. And when people depend on you it makes you really, really realize the responsibilities that go along with your job. It taught me a lot of lessons that I take into my job today, like how to be punctual. I remember Sunday mornings, if the paper wasn’t on their doorstep by a certain time, my family was getting called at 5 a.m.

“So punctuality is big with me when it comes to me and my athletes. If they’re late, it’s a pet peeve of mine.”