Jenny Chiu

American-Mexican soccer player and reporter (born 1995)

Jenny Chiu
Personal information
Full name Jenny Ana Chiu Amparán
Date of birth (1995-09-25) September 25, 1995 (age 28)
Place of birth El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Height 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m)
Position(s) Forward / midfielder
College career
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2013–2016 North Carolina 15 (0)
International career
2012 Mexico U-17 5 (0)
2014 Mexico U-20 0 (0)

Jenny Ana Chiu Amparán (born September 25, 1995) is an American-Mexican sports reporter and former soccer player. She has worked for CBS Sports since 2020. Born in the United States, she played internationally for the Mexico national under-17 team. She played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Early life and playing career

Chiu was born in El Paso, Texas, to Lorena and C.Y. Chiu.[1] She is of Mexican and Chinese descent.[2] She has two brothers, one of whom, Andy, played college soccer for Akron.[1][3]

After she showed promise in soccer at age eight, Chiu's father hired Salvador Mercado and Guillermo McFarlane to be her private coaches.[4] She played on boys' teams and attracted national attention from scouts by age twelve.[4] She was called up to train with the youth national teams of Mexico and the United States.[1][4] She played one season of high school soccer as a sophomore at Franklin High School in El Paso.[5] In April 2011, the website TopDrawerSoccer.com named her the top player from Texas.[6] She verbally committed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in July 2011.[3]

During her sophomore year in high school, pain emerged in a spot on Chiu's lower back which was diagnosed as the result of bulging spinal disks partly due to overuse while playing on poor fields.[4] Despite the pain, she played for the Mexico under-17 team at the 2012 CONCACAF Women's U-17 Championship and captained the team at the 2012 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, where she played in two games.[1][4] Back in El Paso, the pain worsened to the point that she sat out her senior high school and club season.[4] She graduated from the School for Educational Enrichment in El Paso in 2013.[1]

Chiu played in only 15 games for 164 minutes during her four years at North Carolina.[1][4] She redshirted her first year and played in only six games the next two seasons.[4] In the summer of 2014, she was called up to the Mexico under-20 team at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.[7] In a study abroad program before her last year of college, she covered soccer and badminton at the 2016 Summer Olympics in an internship with the Olympic News Service.[8][9] She played in nine games as a redshirt junior, ending her college career in the semifinals of the 2016 NCAA Championship.[1][4] She graduated from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media in 2017.[8]

Journalism career

While playing professional soccer in Australia, Chiu got her start in professional broadcasting with Fox Sports.[5] She then became a social media intern for the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer (MLS) and conducted player interviews and produced content for a vlog.[10][11] She joined the broadcast team of MLS's Orlando City SC in 2018, and she won a Suncoast Emmy Award for producing a short video about Orlando's 2020 preseason.[12][13]

CBS Sports hired Chiu in September 2020 to be an on-field reporter for the UEFA Champions League.[11][10] She began reporting for Morning Footy and appearing on Attacking Third for the CBS Sports Golazo Network in 2023.[14][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Jenny Chiu – Women's Soccer". University of North Carolina Athletics. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  2. ^ "Jenny Chiu". Instagram. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Chavez, Felix. "Jenny Chiu to attend North Carolina". El Paso Times. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Marks, Brendan (February 3, 2017). "College soccer: When it all ends". UNC Media Hub. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
  5. ^ a b Ochoa, Adrian (September 19, 2020). "Community Champion: Former El Paso soccer star finds success as soccer television reporter". KVIA-TV. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
  6. ^ Chavez, Felix (April 4, 2011). "Franklin soccer player Jenny Chiu". El Paso Times. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  7. ^ Chávez, Felix (July 24, 2014). "Chiu will play at U20 World Cup". El Paso Times. p. C1 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Schmidt, Kaitlyn (August 28, 2021). "UNC journalism grads share career-shaping experience of covering Olympics while in college". WRALSportsFan.com. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  9. ^ "Five Tar Heels Will Gain Journalism Experience At Olympics". University of North Carolina Athletics. July 28, 2016. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  10. ^ a b Bucholtz, Andrew (March 23, 2022). "Jenny Chiu talks sideline reporting for CBS' Mexico-USA broadcast: 'This game is going to be insane.'". Awful Announcing. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  11. ^ a b Wahl, Grant. "The Interview: Jenny Chiu of CBS Sports". Fútbol with Grant Wahl. Retrieved November 22, 2023 – via Substack.
  12. ^ "Orlando City SC Announces 2019 MLS Broadcast Talent". Orlando City SC. February 22, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  13. ^ Christiansen, Kathleen (December 15, 2020). "2020 Suncoast Regional Emmy Awards winners announced". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on November 21, 2023.
  14. ^ Gonzalez, Roger (March 9, 2023). "CBS Sports Golazo Network, a 24/7 streaming channel dedicated to soccer, to launch April 11". CBS Sports. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  15. ^ "CBS Sports Golazo Network Debuting New 'Attacking Third' Show Dedicated Exclusively to Women's Soccer" (Press release). Paramount Press Express. July 12, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2023.

External links

  • Jenny Chiu on Twitter