Pearl City girls soccer coach calls it a career
| • | Co-coaches will handle Pearl City girls soccer |
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
Archie Chung, who started as a soccer dad and became coach of the state's most dominant high school girls team of the '90s, announced this week that he is retiring.
Chung's Pearl City High teams won four state championships and six O'ahu Interscholastic Association championships. His overall record in 13 years was 183 victories, 27 defeats and 6 ties.
Archie Chung won four high school state titles during his tenure as the Pearl City girls soccer team coach.
In addition to the four state titles, which came during an eight-year span from 1990-'97, his teams finished second three times and third three times. They qualified for the state tournament all 13 years and finished lower than fifth only once — ironically in 1998 when they were the No. 1 seed and ranked second in the nation.
Only Harry Morales (Punahou, 1983-'86) won as many girls state championships.
The state's athletic directors honored Chung in June for his oustanding contributions as a coach.
Chung admitted he knew nothing about soccer in 1979 when his son signed up for AYSO and the new youth program was calling for volunteers.
"The parents had to help get the sport going," he said. "If there's no coaches, the kids can't play the game.
"I learned from people and clinics and books."
He learned quickly and his AYSO teams won Rainbow and Kirk Banks tournament championships. He entered high school coaching as an assistant to Ron Mata at Farrington and was an assistant at Pearl City for two years before he was named head girls coach in 1988.
Chung, 61, retired in 1999 as a production control technician, a planner, in the City and County road division. "I've got an 11-month old grandson on the Big Island now ... it's time" to retire, he said.
Chung's first two state championship teams, in 1990 and '91, had a combined record of 34-0.
"The first one is always the best," he said, but nearly as memorable was 1993, when the Chargers were unseeded.
"We beat (top-seeded) Punahou in a shootout in the semifinals and (defending champion) Mililani for the championship," he said.
Pearl City always seemed to have an abundance of talented, intelligent and fast players. Among names that come quickly to Chung are Nicki Arakawa, Dawn Baumholtz, Kim Sandhoff, Sara Tanita, Trisha Tateyama and Robin Park, all of whom went on to win college all-star honors. There were many others, such as state championship goalkeepers Kimberly Sparlin and Karri Watanabe, and Tiffany Makue, who kicked game-winning goals in the state semifinal and championship games in 1997.
"Trisha Tateyama didn't want to play. A coach saw her fooling around with a ball, and said 'I want you to play.' She went on to a great career at Seattle University," Chung rewcalls.
Help from many people, especially parents "who brought coffee to me on the sidelines" was a key to the Chargers' success, Chung said.
Discipline was a mark of Chung's teams. They followed a list of 36 rules that 13-year assistant coach Frank Baumholtz III once said, "are chiseled in stone."
The usual penalty for breaking rules was to run "dongers," which involved running a total of 350 yards, dribbling a ball, nonstop, in ever lengthening segments.
Late for practice? One "donger" for each minute. Missing practice without an acceptable reason? 25 "dongers."
The most important rule, Baumholtz said, was No. 18:
"No cliques, no complaining, no criticizing, no egotism, no envy, no alibis, no excuses."
For 13 years, Charger girls followed the rules, developed a positive chemistry, and won 86 percent of their games and 10 championships.
