Alouettes' Chiu a central force on and off the field
Congenial CFL centre has overcome his share of tragedies
Bryan Chiu's career as a professional football centre in Montreal has followed the same, distinct pattern: Snap the ball. Take a hit. Keep moving. Keep smiling.
For 35 to 40 left-handed snaps a game. Sixteen to 18 regular-season games a year. Thirteen years. More than 8,000 chances. Few screw-ups.
Now 35, Chiu is at once one of the funniest men in the Canadian Football League (he once told a reporter quarterback Anthony Calvillo was far more familiar with his butt than his wife is), and also one of its most thoughtful.
He has lived a life that has closely resembled how he makes a living with the Alouettes.
"My dad was murdered, actually, when I was two," says Chiu, deep into a long phone interview after a practice in Montreal.
"He was murdered in Vancouver … and [my mom] was left as a 24-year-old widow with two young kids and no job, couldn't speak English, didn't have a driver's licence, didn't have a car, no life insurance from my dad, so she was in debt."
But Teresa Chiu provided for the family, made ends meet, pushed Bryan and his sister through school, "fed us, put clothes on our back."
And she instilled an overriding philosophy that has stayed with her son since then.
"She was my role model. She was the one person who always told me no matter what it is, keep a smile on your face because life is too short not to be happy and not to love what you do."
Snap the ball. Take a hit. Keep moving. Keep smiling.
Mom remarried when Bryan was eight to a man who had lost his own wife and had six children. She became Teresa Dee and together they brought child No. 9 aboard the busy ship.
Most of those have gone on to become doctors and dentists and the like, leaving Chiu to laugh, "I'm the black sheep of the family, I would say."
Mother had to be swayed
His mom wasn't a big fan of his chosen sport at first.
"She saw it as a violent game, where you just hit people," he says. "She wasn't really supportive of it at first … she wanted me to get my education and maybe some music or whatnot."
But when the game gave her son a fine education at Washington State University (two degrees), she came around and is awfully proud now.
Football sent Chiu to the CFL, where the Als immediately switched him from guard to centre, and put Calvillo up his butt. That was eight all-star appearances, a team-record 210 games played, a CFL most outstanding award, six Grey Cups and one Cup victory ago.
Not to mention nine major operations, including three on each knee, an elbow, a shoulder and his snapping hand. A painful way to make a living.
"It's nothing I'll ever regret," he says. "What other job can I get where you have 30 [thousand] or 40,000 people cheering us on every week, and we're nationally broadcasted, and people get to see your job and what you do."
Chiu's influence
About five years after Chiu finally retires from the Alouettes, the 13-year centre should find himself on the steps in Hamilton, taking a place in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
He would be the second Asian player so chosen (after the great Normie Kwong, the China Clipper), and Chiu takes that role seriously.
"The older you get, the more you come to love this game and this league, and for me it's a great inspiration to the younger Asian kids out there," he says. "If I can do it, I don't see why anyone can't."
Between the CFL and NFL, there have only been a handful of Asian players, going back to the 1920s when Walter (Sneeze) Achiu was a member of the Dayton franchise in the NFL's forerunner.
"In the Asian culture, football is looked at as a violent game," he says. "Asians in general are smaller in stature (Chiu, though, is six-foot-one, 288 pounds) … a lot of people, they don't understand the game."
Chiu loves to go out and speak about football to fans of all cultures, and through his website Centre68.com, works with other players, officials, agents and more to help educate young athletes about their options and how to make the proper choices in life and football.
"I've been very lucky," he says of his career.
And he wants to pass some of that around.
Not to mention his occasional mistakes, such as the 2004 Eastern Final at home against Toronto where the 14-4 Als were heavily favoured.
"We were down about the 15-yard line, and we were going in and poised to score, and it was the first quarter and we were about to make a statement."
Chiu muffed the snap, a turnover resulted and Montreal never seemed to recover. The Argos would go on to win the Grey Cup. He's never forgotten that. But he moved on.
A year of love and loss
In 2005, Chiu married Carlee Roberts.
One week before, his fiancée's father died. After days of sadness, the wedding went on, filled with laughter.
"It had to happen," Chiu told the Montreal Gazette back then. "It was nice having that laughter. It was almost a relief. We'd been grieving the whole week before. We had no choice but to be happy at the wedding."
Three months later, the centre's grandmother, who had been instrumental in helping raise him, died in Vancouver. And just before playing in the Grey Cup that November, he had to go home to act as a pallbearer when a close, lifelong friend was killed in a hit-and-run incident.
Montreal lost that Cup game to Edmonton.
Snap the ball. Take a hit. Keep moving. Keep smiling.
On the subject of those Grey Cups, Chiu and his Als have been in six of them over the last 10 years, winning just once. He sums up the feeling in one word.
"Disappointed. But at the same time, I think you have to look at the overall picture," he said this week. "I think when I'm done playing I'll look at it as a proud run because I know there are a lot of other teams who would like to have done what we've done in the last decade."
And if you keep snapping that ball and keep moving, sweet things can come your way.
On Aug. 25, the Chius brought their second child, a daughter, into the world. It was nine days after the centre's birthday.
How can you not smile when you have that?