Chuck Ngo Leads New Warriors Boys Soccer Coaching Staff

By Polo C’ de Baca
For the Mountain Mail
SOCORRO – Trung “Chuck” Ngo will be the new head coach of the Socorro boys soccer team this year. He is replacing coach Paul Wilkie who had coached the team into the state tournament for the last three years. According to Ngo, Wilkie left unexpectedly and is the assistant girls soccer coach in Bloomfield, N.M.
Joining Ngo on the coaching staff are Kenny Gonzales and Dave Urban.
Ngo is a familiar face in the area. He works full time for the U.S. Postal Service and is also often seen officiating soccer and volleyball games.
“I’ve known this game (soccer) since I was a little boy in Vietnam,” Ngo said. “We didn’t have a program, but I played with other boys that hung out together. We didn’t have grass. We didn’t have shoes. We played barefoot on the dirt. We just played for fun. I enjoyed the game and leaned a lot by watching the pros.”
Ngo said that he would not necessarily concentrate on a good win-loss record but hoped to integrate education and sports in his program and emphasize education. He said that there will be no “try-outs” as such because the numbers of players was not as high as those found in bigger schools.
“I will work with kids of all levels,” Ngo said. “I’ll work with beginners who may have never touched a ball before.
The team had a scrimmage with Grants last Saturday. Ngo said that so far they have about 20 kids show up to play and they took all of them on the trip and that he expects more players will show up to play for the team later. There are about 10 seniors on the team this year.
“Every kid got to play at least 20 minutes,” Ngo said. “I didn’t leave anybody out. I want all the kids to get some experience. I have kids ranging from the eighth grade to seniors. I told the kids that I wouldn’t guarantee that we’d go to state, but we would work on it step by step and game by game. If things work out as I expect, we’ll have a good team.”
The team will play its first four games away beginning with Taos High School this weekend.

Chuck Ngo Leads New Warriors Boys Soccer Coaching Staff