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HIGH HONORS: Tom Chea, who runs Chea's Taekwondo in Warwick, was named National Coach of the Year.
Tom Chea originally sought out martial arts as a way to defend himself.
As an 8-year-old boy who had just come to Lowell, Mass. from Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam War, persecution and racism were rampant.
“Back then there was a little prejudice going on and in America, we can’t tell what’s Cambodian or Vietnamese,” Chea said.
The logical decision, then, was for Chea to find a way to avoid being picked on. He turned to martial arts, specifically taekwondo and it became one of the most rewarding decisions of his life.
Chea was honored recently as the 2010 National Taekwondo Coach of the Year, a high honor for anybody, but especially somebody who originally got into the sport for all the wrong reasons.
“I was bullied,” Chea said. “I got into martial arts for the wrong reasons, but I ended up finding out that it was a good reason because I ended up learning that I didn’t want to fight.”
And he never did get into a fight, but instead became one of the best taekwondo competitors in the nation, and later, one of the best coaches as well.
Chea, who moved to Rhode Island about two years ago and is the head instructor for Chea’s Taekwondo in Warwick, is currently a fourth degree black belt and a certified master, which is easy to understand given his track record.
He won gold medals in the 1996 U.S. Open, the 1997 Pan-American Open and the 1995 North American Elite. Five times he was the U.S. Cup Champion, and he was crowned state and New England champion eight times.
“I started competing and I just started doing well in competition,” Chea said. “I just kept pursuing my dream.”
As a coach, Chea’s resume is just as impressive.
While being crowned national coach of the year this year, Chea saw two of his athletes – Nicolas Silva and Graziano Mungo – get named to the U.S. national team. In addition, Mungo was named the National Male Athlete of the Year in taekwondo.
Chea has also helped produce numerous state, regional and national champions from all different age groups.
Since 2005, Chea has also served as head coach for the Peak Performance Team of New England, where he trains athletes hoping to qualify for the national team. Prior to that, he served as head coach of Chea’s X-Treme Taekwondo for seven years.
“I like the coaching,” Chea said. “When I started coaching I found out that I learn more.”
Even during his competition days, Chea actually set the wheels in motion for a coaching career.
When he was in his mid-teens, his master had him teach taekwondo at an air force base. By 1994, he had become the head instructor at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Mass., where he trained military personnel.
After stopping there in 1997, he served as the head instructor for the Mass. Governors Alliance Against Drugs, training children who were at risk.
“As I got older, at 18 or 19 I ended up teaching more,” Chea said. “That’s when I knew that teaching was for me.”
Yet, while coaching was something he wanted to focus on, Chea had no intention of withholding himself from competition.
But in 1999, in the Pan-American Games, Chea tore the anterior crucial ligament in his right knee.
He tried to rehab, but in a sport that relies on kicking, it became apparent that his competitive career was over.
“I tried to comeback but it didn’t happen,” Chea said. “It’s not the same.”
At that point, he turned his full attention toward coaching, and there are countless athletes who are better off because of it.
He ended up coaching the Massachusetts and Rhode Island state teams on separate occasions, and became more involved in training students with the hope of getting them to the Olympics.
Though he hasn’t worked with an Olympic athlete just yet, it is certainly well within the realm of possibility.
“My goal and my dream is to create an athlete from around the New England area to actually make the Olympic team,” Chea said.
Having already succeeded every step of the way, it may be only a matter of time before the national coach of the year crosses that next goal off his list.
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