Romain Rouillard 17:11 pm, May 05, 2023

At 42 years old, Joël Bouraïma, aka "Coach Joe", retraced his astonishing career at the microphone of "La France bouge". An itinerary that led him to the other side of the Atlantic to become the privileged coach of stars of cinema, music or the sports sphere. Portrait of a child from Yvelines who has realized his American dream.

From the housing estates of Saint-Cyr-L'Ecole, in the Yvelines, to the glitzy Californian coast in the United States. This unusual trajectory is that of Joël Bouraïma, alias "Coach Joe". A well-known name among lovers of Star Academy of which he is the official sports coach. But it is 9,000 km from Paris, in Los Angeles, that this 42-year-old Frenchman conducts most of his activity. A daily life that he shares with big names in cinema, song and even American sport who all have one thing in common: their sports sessions are done under the leadership of "Coach Joe". But to get there, it is a journey strewn with pitfalls and headwinds that Joël Bouraïma had to face. An itinerary that he retraces in a book Always give everything, published by Talent, as well as at the microphone of Elisabeth Assayag in La France bouge this Friday.

A sports lover from childhood

To say that nothing predestined Coach Joe for such a rise does not seem entirely accurate. Because from an early age, this son of a Senegalese father and a Corrèze mother fell in love with sports and tried all kinds of disciplines, from judo to football. "It was by going to try for myself a little bit everything that was being done at the sporting level that I discovered that it was something that I liked and that suited me perfectly. I could see myself evolving in that environment. After, I did not yet know how or what path to take, "says the interested party to the microphone of Europe 1.

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And the path will take time to be traced. The fault of a disjointed school career that closes the doors that he will then hasten to reopen. "I thought it would go to the next class except that there, maybe I didn't give enough or, they felt it wasn't enough. And at the end of college, instead of continuing to a normal course and then continuing with university, I am directed to this professional sales track, "he recalls.

A refined professional project... in Australia

But the desire to evolve in the sporting sphere does not leave him. And if Joël Bouraïma does not regret this experience in the sales industry, it is once his baccalaureate in his pocket and his entry into sports college that his career begins. But the American dream is still a long way off. For now, the future "Coach Joe" puts on the costume of sports teacher in college. A job whose reality turns out to be very different from the image he had of it. "Today I could see that young people have a diminished interest in sport. I did not find, for example, the desire I had to go to my hour of sport, "he says.

Joël Bouraïma resigned and selected "the place as far as possible from [his] neighborhood" to learn English. Head to Australia where his desire to become a personal trainer takes shape. When he returned to France, he crossed paths with a former college friend, himself a gym coach. At a time when the number of coaches on the market is much smaller than today, Joël Bouraïma sees the opportunity emerging. Through the meetings, he manages to build a network until he goes to exercise his activity in the very prestigious room of the Opera Factory where many celebrities come to talk physically.

"It wasn't the celebrities who made me eat"

And in particular Omar Sy, originally from Trappes, close to Saint-Cyr and old acquaintance of "Coach Joe". At the Factory, he also meets a certain Steven Guttman, an American multimillionaire who puts him in direct contact with... Kanye West. For Joël Bouraïma, the American dream is becoming more and more reality. In 2015, he moved permanently to the California coast and oversaw the training of the rapper but also those of the Kardashian sisters or ... by Omar Sy, whose physical preparation he ensured ahead of the film Intouchables.

And despite this new life among the stars, out of the question for Coach Joe to forget his roots. "I started with Mr. and Mrs. everybody. So it would be almost ungrateful of me to look down on them now under the pretext that I rub shoulders with celebrities. (...) It's not the celebrities who made me eat, it's Mr. and Mrs. everybody. (...) They are really my base of work," he said.

From now on, can we imagine seeing the emergence of a Coach Joe "franchise" in which he would develop his method and provide his advice? "A franchise maybe not but why not have my place," replies the interested party. A project that could take the form of a room that he would "duplicate on Los Angeles too" in order to "have this Paris-L.A. bridge, these two cultures that followed me and that see me grow".