A Season To Remember

The son of a Waikiki beach boy grows up to be America’s pro soccer star of 2006

Wednesday - December 20, 2006
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Soccer pro Brian Ching returns home this holiday season with a lot to celebrate. The local boy from Haleiwa and Kamehameha Schools (class of 1996) scored four goals in the inaugural game for his team, the Houston Dynamo, earned a spot on the United States World Cup team, had an all-star appearance against Chelsea (a team in the English premier soccer league), won the Goal of the Year award, a Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup, and the MVP trophy from the final.

But there’s more to this soccer star than his game-winning skills. Off the field, Ching is the type of guy you would want to bring home to meet your parents. He’s described as “down to earth, humble and genuinely nice.”

“I’m pretty laid back and I take things as they come,” says Ching. “But on the field it’s a little bit of a different personality that comes out. I’m extremely competitive. I hate to lose. My wife, Charisse, gets mad at me sometimes because I get mad at her when she beats me at cards. I’m not a very good loser.”

Since being drafted to the MLS in 2001, Ching has been coming home to Hawaii every December and spends only three weeks out of the year here. And while he says he misses his family and Hawaii a lot and needs the off-season to rest, he still finds time to give back to the community.

Next week (Dec. 26-29), Ching will be among a few professional soccer stars to take part in the Pro-Xtreme Holiday Soccer Camp at Waialae Iki Park.

“I wish I was able to get back to Hawaii a little more so I could help out and be more of a public figure for soccer,” he says. “But every year when I do come back I try to work with the kids through the Pro-Xtreme camp and some other soccer camps. And I try to get up to Kamehameha Schools if I can to help out with the boys program there by talking to the kids and answering questions that they have. In the past, I’ve jumped in a practice or two, and I’ve been to Kamehameha Schools and to one of the soccer clubs on Maui.

“When I’m back I definitely try to reach as many kids as I can, letting them know what to expect and what I’ve been through. And hopefully they can learn from some of those experiences and see that getting to that next level, whatever it may be, whether it’s going to college or making the varsity team, it’s attainable through hard work and dedication.”

Ching started playing soccer at age 7 and immediately fell in love with the sport. He went on to play for Kamehameha Schools and then for Gonzaga University, where he earned a degree in accounting.

Then, in 2001, he was drafted to the Los Angeles Galaxy.

“I’d want to say that it was a dream come true, but I really didn’t dream about becoming a professional until I was a sophomore in college,” says Ching, who is a quarter Hawaiian, a quarter Chinese and half Caucasian. “That’s when I realized that maybe I can become a professional soccer player in this country, so when I was drafted I was kind of excited and kind of shocked. I was in disbelief that I made it that far.”

But making the draft was just the beginning of a new journey that would test Ching physically and mentally.

“The first year was a rough year for me,” he confesses. “I don’t think I was really mentally prepared to make the jump between college soccer and professional soccer. I ended up starting in the first game of the season with the Galaxy, and we ended up being down 3-0 at halftime and I got subbed.

“I wasn’t supposed to start in that game, but somebody got

Brian Ching hoists the MLS Cup Most Valuable Player trophy after scoring the tying goal of the game and scoring the winning penalty kick

injured. So, I started but I didn’t really play well, the whole team didn’t play particularly well that first half of that game. But since I was the young guy the coach pulled me out, and that kind of destroyed my confidence for most of the year. It took me a whole year to get that back, but by the end of the year it was too late and I got released to the Seattle Sounders which at the time was in the division under the MLS.”

But Ching, being the competitive person that he is, was not about to give up. Losing was not an option.

“I think I learned a lot as far as not losing your confidence and just believing in yourself, and I learned a lot about that in that first year in the MLS,” he says. “So, in 2002, I had a tremendously successful season (in Seattle), and in 2003 I got picked up by the San Jose Earthquakes.”

Last year, while in San Jose, Ching’s wife, Charisse, was accepted into pharmacy school at University of the Pacific in nearby Stockton, only to find out five months later that they would be moving to Houston.

“That kind of really put a wrench into things as far as her being only about an hour away (drive), and now it’s a three and a half hour plane ride,” says Ching, who met Charisse at Gonzaga. “So next year I’ll be in Houston with the Dynamo, and in the off-season I’ll be wherever she is for school. And she grew up on Maui, so when we go back to Hawaii we usually spend half the time on Maui and half the time on Oahu.”

Ching, who missed his 10-year high school reunion because he was at the World Cup in Germany, says there are a lot of things he misses about Hawaii, such as the food.

“I miss eating at Zippy’s,” he shares. “I love their fried chicken and chili. And I miss Matsumoto’s shave ice. And wearing slippers everywhere.

“And when I get back to Hawaii, I really look forward to surfing as much as I can. That’s something I love to do and wish I could do more of, and probably one of the major reasons why I miss Hawaii so much. My dad was a Waikiki beach boy, so that’s one of the things I grew up doing.”

Ching’s father, Francis, passed away in 1993 from lung cancer. His mother, Stephanie Whalen, is the director of the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center. He also has an older brother, Michael,

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