[2025] Meet the Croots: FB Chin Chaves from Scranton, PA

[dearden]

It's May 2001 - Janet Jackson's All for You tops the Billboard Hot 100 (Survivor by Destiny's Child is a close second); DreamWorks have released an adaptation of a 1990 children's picture book called Shrek; and, as of May 20th, the Seattle Marines have the best record in baseball at a commanding 32-11.

Halfway across the world, Angola is burning.  It's twenty-six year long Civil War is an inextinguishable conflagration; even when the ashes appear to have settled, an ember lights the fire of war again.  And again.

Our story begins on May 21, 2001 in the Angolan provincial capital of N'dalatando; our protagonist, Mr. Jose Abraão Chaves, is forty-one year-old mid-level functionary tasked with ensuring the flow of international aid from the coastal ports to his interior homeland.  Born and raised within the Portuguese colonial system, Mr. Chaves is the perfect administrator: he speaks Portuguese and Kimbundu natively alongside French, which he learned from Médecins Sans Frontières volunteers, and English, a gift from Jesuit priests from the United States; he has a keen grasp on logistics, as evidenced by the fact that trucks travel to and through his province carrying food and medicine without any falling off the back; and he is incorruptible.  He is resolute - a man of principle and unwavering faith.  That is, until May 22, 2001.

As dawn broke, more than seven-hundred refugees stumbled into his jurisdiction - an attack occurred in the village of Golungo Alto overnight, these survivors had trekked over sixty kilometers (approximately thirty-seven miles) under the cover of darkness seeking aid and shelter.  There was only one problem: there were only enough supplies for a mere hundred of them.  As Mr. Chaves waded through the crowd with his subordinates, speaking to the huddled masses, a baby was thrust into his hands - a boy, no older than two months.  He could not see from where, but inquiry after inquiry within the crowd led to nothing - the boy was an orphan.

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"It was fate.  My beautiful wife, Ana Sara, and I had always dreamt of being parents, but we were in our forties and had not yet received such a blessing.  If there is anything that can be celebrated of that terrible and chaotic conflict is that it gave us our son, Pedro Isaque.  When I learned that the military and the government were prohibiting coverage of the crisis, I did my best to ration the supplies for those villagers, but I made the decision to leave - for our new family.  I did not want my son to grow up in that never-ending violence as I and so many others had, I wanted him to have a better life.  So we fled."

The Chaves family departed N'dalatando on May 23, 2001, arriving in Portugal as refugees within a few months time thanks to Mr. Chaves' connections to an aid group from Faro.  Their ultimate destination?  Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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"When I was fifteen, Jesuit priests came to N'dalatando bringing books for school children.  They stayed for two years; I worked closely with one of the priests, Father Peter Wisniewski, as a teaching assistant.  I learned English from him, but our time together reinforced my faith when I was but a jaded boy surrounded by sadness.  He told me that helping others was the greatest gift - he told me that if I ever needed help, that he and his family would be able to shelter me and my kin.  Fr. Wisniewski was from Scranton, in Pennsylvania, so that is where Ana, Pedro, and I sought to go."

Thirty years after Fr. Wisniewski and Mr. Chaves last spoke, the former agreed to be the latter's sponsor to come to the United States.  It would take five more years for the Chaves family to reach American soil - both a by-product of the American immigration system and the absolute anarchy it was thrust into after the September 11th attacks - but they arrived in Scranton with another blessing: Ana was heavily-pregnant with a son.  In their forties, after thinking that parenthood had passed them by, Jose and Ana Chaves became parents to a second son: Chin Chaves, christened in honor of the young Chinese-American attorney, Peter Chin, who handled the Chaves' immigration case from start-to-finish.

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Eighteen years later, Chin Chaves is a three-sport (Football, Wrestling, Lacrosse) phenom out of Scranton Preparatory Academy.  Standing at 5'10" and weighing an imposing 233 pounds, Chaves is officially designated as a Fullback by Rivals, ESPN, and 24/7, but there's much more to his game.  In 2022, Chaves captained his Cavaliers freshman football team to a Pennsylvania state title; rushing for a touchdown and receiving another in the title-decider to cap off a season where he earned freshman all-state honors and racked-up the most all-purpose yards amongst eligible rushers and receivers.  Chaves carried this momentum into 2023 and 2024, where during his sophomore and junior years he became Pennsylvania's most-feared third-down specialist.  Opponents frequently balk at what defensive strategy to employ when Chaves reports on third-down.  When defenses have aimed to stop the ground game, Chaves utilizes his abilities as a receiver to get open and make a play; when a pass-defense is employed, Chaves simply uses his powerful frame to literally bowl over the opposition.  In no game was this more apparent than the 2024 season-opener between Scranton Prep and cross-town rivals Scranton High School - on three different occasions, Prep lined up on third-and-goal from beyond the five-yard-line with Scranton High looking to make a stop.  Chin Chaves finished the night with three touchdowns, two through the air and one on the ground, all from third-and-goal.

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"It was a really special game for me - not only did it kick-start our season, but it was the first game of proper football that my older brother Peter got to see me play.  He's six years older than me, so we'd never really overlapped in school and he didn't really get to see me develop into an athlete before he went off to college.  I mean, of course he saw me play Pop Warner as a kid - and I remember him being my biggest fan, even compared to our parents - but it's a whole new ballgame literally and figuratively when you grow up.  Like a lot of other kids, football was just fun growing up, but it's more than fun to me now.  Putting on that uniform, going out there and giving it my all for my school, my teammates, and myself - it's a way of showing my pride from where I'm from and thanking everyone who's been such an influence in my life.  I play for my brother, who's been my role model since Day 1; I play for my parents, who sacrificed their lives in Angola for the hope that Peter and I would have better opportunities in America; I play for my city, my community, who I'm so proud to consider my extended family and who make me feel unconditionally loved and supported; and I play for God the Almighty, for He gave me innumerable blessings to be here today.  I'm excited to get out there this season and, with God's grace, to bring a state championship back home to Scranton - as a thank you to everyone who's supported me through my journey thus far."

During my time in Scranton, I spent a lot of time with the Chaves family.  Mr. Chaves, as a member of their faculty, gave me a tour of Scranton Prep. I received a backstage pass to the entire school; however, the most impressive room, at least in my opinion, was his office.  Adorning virtually every available surface, alongside French textbooks and stacks of tests and lesson plans, were footballs - game balls.  Each were dated and with scores written on them; Mr. Chaves beams, as any proud father would, as he recounts each game to me with an academically impressive level of detail.  Prominent amongst all else are two display cases, in an obvious place of veneration on either side of Mr. Chaves' desk.  The first display case contains a ball which reads: 2022 Pennsylvania Freshman State Championship, 14-12; the game ball from Chin's freshman year, where his two touchdowns made all the difference.  The second display case, curiously, appears empty.

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"Chinny bought these for me - he works in the school library stocking shelves and he saved up to surprise me.  He got the first one in 2023, since the 2022 Freshman State Championship ball was just sitting on my desk and would roll a little if I was being clumsy and stubbed my toe on the corner rushing to and from classes.  This second one, well, he just bought me that one.  He said, "Dad, I want this to be my promise to you - I'm going to get you the 2025 State Championship.  They'll put the trophy in the halls and we'll all get keepsakes, but I want you to have the game ball to round out your collection.  If I don't get that, then I'll get you a game ball from an even more important game so you can add it to your office.  He's a good boy, but I don't need a silly football - I'm proud of him, he's my son, that's all that matters."

Mr. Chaves implored me to take a look at the seemingly-empty display case - propped up on the pedestal in the display case, where only Mr. Chaves can see it from his office chair, is a baby picture of Chin being held by his older brother Peter.  Chin is wearing an adorably-tiny Santa hat, Peter is wearing a child's sized duplicate of the same Santa Hat; scribbled in sharpie in the corner is Christmas, 2007.  A proud dad, indeed.

At the Chaves home, Mrs. Chaves prepared a whole feast: I sampled caruru, a sort of jambalaya-esque shrimp and okra stew; kissuto rombo, garlic-roasted goat with lemon-rice; farofa, a rice and bean dish; and cocada amarela, custardy coconut pudding.  Mrs. Chaves, ever the hostess-with-the-mostess, insisted that I take a plethora of other dishes whos names I cannot recall off the top of my head back to my hotel with me.  As she packed tupperware container after tupperware container, Chin insisted on showing me his room.  Aside from the crucifix above the lightswitch next to the door, it looked like most bedrooms of high-school-aged boys, albeit tidy: a desk with opened-envelopes on one side and a TI-84 and an Xbox controller on the other; a hastily-made bed in the corner; an open closet door displaying a shoe collection of Nikes, Air Jordans, and the like; and a like-new hat rack.  No hidden Playboy magazines, as far as I could tell from my vantage point.

Before I know it, Chin has arranged a set of hats on the bed for me to see: Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Boston College, Yale, Georgetown, Fordham, Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, and Colgate.  As I nod approvingly at the Notre Dame hat and make a quip about the Patriot League, Chin explains that these ten schools are either schools who have already approached him about playing football in 2026, places he's received mail about applying to, or institutions he's already applied to outside of football.  Breaking those schools down, the entirety of the Patriot League - Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Georgetown, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Lehigh have all shown interest in Chin Chaves.  I mean, how could they not, he practically plays high school football in their conference's backyard.  Both Boston College and Notre Dame, as Catholic institutions, are schools that Chin has received mail from and indicates that he's highly interested in if they were to offer him a chance to play football.  The outlier of Yale?  Well, Chin's already applied to Yale - his older brother Peter is studying there for his Masters Degree in Divinity, and we all know that Chin would love for more opportunities to play football with his brother in attendance.

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"I'm keeping my options open.  I'd love to play under the Golden Dome at Notre Dame or in the ACC at Boston College; they're both collegiate institutions that I'm familiar with due to the curriculum at Prep and my connection to my faith, but I feel like I'd fit in anywhere with a similar sort of culture.  That said, I'm not gonna limit myself to religious institutions - Roman Catholic or otherwise - just because of my personal-preference towards that style of education.  It'd also be a dream-come-true to suit up in the Blue and White of Penn State.  Running out onto that field would be the culmination of my journey to represent my community at the highest level, I mean, what better way to represent Scranton than to play in Pennsylvania's third-largest city on gamedays?  I'm letting my imagination get the best of me, recruiting season is a ways-away and I'm just looking forward for the opportunity to play college ball.  I want to be the first Angolan-American to play in the NFL, and I'm looking forward to showing all those collegiate programs out there that I'm gonna put the work in and then some to get there."

As I depart the Chaves residence, tupperware containers in tow, I thank the Chaveses for their hospitality and offer to return the favor if they're ever down in Miami.  Unlocking my rental car, I place my feast-to-go in the passenger footwell and grab a football I purchased earlier that day; I asked Chin to sign it for me and he obliged.  I like the sound of "the first Angolan-American to play in the NFL" and I genuinely think that this scrappy, well-mannered kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania can get there.  A signed-football would be one hell of a keepsake for my office; I'd get a display case, but those are only for game balls.  I know for a fact that there's only one man who's getting his hands on a Chin Chaves game ball other than the player himself - his father.