CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BVM) — From the day he learned to walk, Chase Wickham dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player. Growing up just south of Vancouver, Canada, he spent his teenage years playing outside back for his local club team before bringing his talents to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“One of the biggest differences between Canada and U.S. club is the amount of training,” Wickham said. “Kids are better earlier because of the exposure to higher quantity and quality of training at such a young age.”

But that didn’t stop Wickham from climbing the ranks to earn a full scholarship to play at UAB.

After a successful collegiate career, Wickham capitalized on his childhood dreams and signed with the Charlotte Eagles, a USL Pro team at the time. But in 2015, when the Eagles sold their professional rights, his career took an unexpected turn. He and his wife, Annie, knew they wanted to continue life in Charlotte, so Chase began to focus on building his private coaching company, Excelerate LLC. He quickly established himself as Charlotte’s premier soccer coach, earning a spot as the No. 1 ranked coach in America by CoachUp, a title he holds to this day.

During that time, Chase also took on a coaching position with the Eagles U8 club team. Fast forward to today and he has invested over five years in coaching his players to become the best version of themselves, both on and off the field.

Navigating through injuries and roster changes have not deterred the team from consistently producing winning seasons, but the past six months have seen unprecedented challenges as COVID-19 brought the spring season to an abrupt halt. This was the season the team had been working toward since the players were 7 years old.

“Teams aren’t eligible to compete for the national championship until their U13 season,” Chase said. “So the climax of everything we’ve been building up to for the last five years is this season.”

COVID-19 also made for an interesting time for Chase’s coaching as well as adjustments have thrown the usual practices into some chaos.

“It’s been an unorthodox transition going from season to season,” he said, explaining that the effects have carried into tryouts and the beginning of the fall season. “We are authorized to do contact training. I take every player’s temperature as they got onto the field, document it, and get verbal consent they haven’t been showing any symptoms, and then all of the coaches have to wear masks for the duration of the training.”

While the team can train as often as they want, the chances of actually playing games this year are looking pretty slim.

“[The fall season] is very much in the air,” Chase said. “A lot of people don’t think it’s going to happen. Normally, we would have started a month ago.”

However, according to Chase, “with the introduction of Phase 2.5, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for a season, [albeit] a much later start date.”

If they are able to play, the boys certainly have a coach who believes in their ability to excel.

“My team?” Chase said with a smile. “Yeah, we look good. I mean, this is what we’ve been building up to.”

The team trains four nights every week, with a couple of weekend games during the season. Chase records every play of every game. Whether they win or lose, he takes the time the next day to go through each play to find a way to make his players even better through practice the following week. Week in and week out, Chase gives no less than 100%, and his players follow his example.

There wasn’t a hint of doubt in his voice as he stated that he expects the team to win both the state and regional tournaments.

“Nationals are [next] July, so I want to qualify for nationals, and I think this team can win a championship,” Chase said. “You know, only time will tell, but I believe they can do it.”

In the meantime, despite his focus on coaching, Chase still finds time to compete on the field.

“I definitely like organized, high-level soccer when I play,” Chase said. “I don’t like the random dribbling or the combustion that happens in pick-up games. So I play in an indoor league.”

As if 2020 hasn’t featured enough excitement, to top it all off, Chase and Annie recently welcomed two beautiful twins into the world. Knowing Chase, there is no doubt he will be as caring of a father as he is a coach. It’s safe to say it won’t be long before siblings Cade and Ayla are hoisting trophies of their own.