The defining act of Timmy Chang's life was one of defiance.
A high school All-American quarterback at Saint Louis, Chang held offers from some of the premier programs on the West Coast. Schools such as California, USC, Washington and Utah all lined up for his services.
Levi Chang wanted to see his son spread his wings and ascend to the Mainland, but Timmy Chang wanted to be different. He wanted to stay home.
Timmy Chang became the crown jewel of Hawai‘i's 2000 recruiting class, which remains in conversations as perhaps the school's greatest ever in local football circles. Chang spurned multiple Pac-10 opportunities for a program that went winless in 1998.
"We shared a lot of special moments," Chang told Aloha State Daily of his father. "I don't think he necessarily wanted me to stay home, and I get that because a lot of parents are the same way. My parents were the same way, 'don't stay home, boy, go experience (something different).'"
Chang went on to become a four-year starter at UH, setting an NCAA record for career passing yards. In 2022, he returned to become the head coach of his alma mater. His fourth season at the helm begins on Saturday at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex when the Rainbow Warriors take on Stanford at 1:30 p.m. in a game that will also be televised nationally on CBS.
Described as a disciplinarian, Levi Chang was a school administrator who also coached basketball and officiated college football games. A common assignment was serving as a play clock official during Hawai‘i games at Aloha Stadium. He was there when his son broke the NCAA career yardage record on Nov. 6, 2004 against Louisiana Tech. After delivering a seven-yard touchdown pass to Jason Rivers, Chang retrieved the ball and ran across the field to give it to his father.
Although Levi Chang was present for his son's most memorable moments as a player, he suddenly passed away on Sept. 9, 2015, just as Timmy Chang's coaching career was beginning to take off.
As the 10-year anniversary of Levi Chang's death approaches, Timmy Chang continues to try to honor his father by the way he raises his own family with his wife, Sherry, and their five children.
"He was very loving, but very honest, upfront about what things had to be, why things had to be the certain way they did," Timmy Chang said. "I find myself having those conversations with my kids now, and it's pretty special."
The course of Timmy Chang's football career led him to multiple countries and states, a path that eventually led him back to his alma mater as head coach. Along the way, his father has remained a major influence.
Finding love
Timmy Chang's professional career never quite panned out the way he had hoped. After going undrafted in 2005, he signed with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals but was cut during training camp. Although he quickly latched on with the Detroit Lions, he was cut before the regular season.
In 2006, the Philadelphia Eagles stashed Chang away to Germany, where he played for the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe. The Eagles then released him before the NFL season.
The next year, Chang relocated to Canada, where he played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL from 2007 to 2008. Although his time in Canada was brief, it was there that he met Sherry, a Hamilton native who served Chang during a team dinner at a local restaurant.
"He was a complete gentleman, and we just hit it off right away," said Sherry Chang.
Timmy Chang returned to the restaurant the next night to ask Sherry out on a date, and "the rest is kind of just history," she said. They've been together 17 years and married for nine.
Noting his humility and charm, Sherry Chang said she didn't know about the type of fame Timmy Chang had on the Islands until the couple took a trip to Las Vegas.
"I knew nothing about football when I met him," Sherry Chang says. "Didn't know what a first down was, none of that stuff. Everyone was stopping him, wanting pictures and autographs. I was like, wait a second. Who is this guy? I had no idea."
Another thing Sherry observed about Timmy? His relationship with his parents.
"His mom and dad are Timmy's biggest fans," Sherry Chang said. "Even when we were in Canada and I hadn't met them yet, Timmy would call his parents every single day and talk to his dad about football and that was kind of their thing together."
Starting from the bottom
In 2009, Timmy Chang retired from football and returned home with Sherry. He decided to pursue a career in coaching, but first, he had to graduate from UH.
Sherry was by Timmy's side, helping him send emails to every single FBS school. None got back to him.
"You don't realize how hard it is actually to get your foot in the door," Sherry recalled.
The first person to take a chance on Timmy Chang as a coach was Mililani's Rod York. It was the spring of 2012, and York decided to bring Chang on as the team's offensive coordinator. In the interim, Chang was also a teaching assistant and substitute at the school. He also started a clinic on the side where he trained players.
Chang never actually got to coach a game at Mililani. June Jones, Chang's coach at Hawai‘i, offered him a spot on SMU's staff as a graduate assistant. In the months before he was set to report, Chang still sat with York for hours on end.
"All of a sudden I get the call from June, and I had to break it to Rod," Chang recalled. "Rod had no offensive coordinator at the time, but I said, 'Hey, Rod, I'm gonna stay until July.' I'm gonna give you everything I know and we're gonna sit here every day. It doesn't matter how long it takes. ... I owe so much to him for that opportunity."
Timmy and Sherry Chang then moved to Dallas, cramming their small family into a one-bedroom apartment. Chang was a GA making $1,500 a month. With one baby and another on the way, food stamps and EBT were part of how they made ends meet.
Losing Levi
Later in Levi Chang's life, he began making regular visits to the hospital for dialysis as a result of his diabetes.
After progressively losing feeling in his legs, Levi fell while walking up the stairs and hit his head. Although he was hospitalized, he was coherent and continued to have football conversations over the phone with his son. His death was sudden and unexpected. He was survived by his wife, Mary Ann, daughters Leigh Ann and Mary Elizabeth, and son Timmy.
Not having his father as a sounding board anymore made Timmy Chang wonder if he wanted to continue coaching.
Timmy Chang, the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Jackson State at the time, decided to push forward.
The next child Timmy and Sherry had was in October 2017, a baby boy named Levi.
Not just any gig
Timmy Chang went on to run the offense at Emory & Henry before coaching receivers, tight ends and special teams under Jay Norvell at Nevada from 2017 to 2021.
Norvell accepted the job at Colorado State following the 2021 season, taking Chang and his family with him to Fort Collins.
Over in the Islands, the University of Hawai‘i football team was undergoing serious peril. In the midst of a mass exodus of players to the NCAA transfer portal, an impromptu Senate hearing was held to address the state of the program under then-head coach Todd Graham on Jan. 7, 2022. Former and current players, senators, attorneys and even York himself took turns airing their grievances on a virtual video call. Graham resigned a week later.
College coaches, across all sports, have a tendency to romanticize the notion of coaching at their alma mater. Timing is everything in the industry, and suddenly Chang was getting his shot after Jones turned down a two-year offer from former UH athletics director David Matlin.
Before accepting the position, Chang had to take a step back and consult the people in his corner. One day, he was sending out emails to schools, praying one would respond. Less than 10 years later, his alma mater came calling, a place he had never coached before.
"Jay Norvell, he put it really simple to me. He said guys like you and me, we don't get jobs like this," Chang recalled. "And that really hit home, because you never know when you get an opportunity, and the opportunity was now."
When asked about Chang at Mountain West media days in July, Norvell leaned back and grinned.
"Yeah, I love Timmy. He's like a brother to me, and he just is so loyal, so smart about the game. He's so authentic," Norvell said. "One of the most important things about coaching is that you have to be yourself or the players are not going to follow you, and players love Timmy because he's authentic. He's a great competitor. He's very smart. He understands all facets of the game, offense, defense, special teams, obviously, was a great quarterback.
"When he was with me he never just went through the motions. He really tried to be outstanding in all those areas, and I think that helped him be a better coach. And that's why I thought he'd be such a great head coach, because I saw how he worked and how he interacted with the players and, you know, this is a hard game. You got to be hard-nosed and and tough-minded, and Timmy has that as well. Sherry, his family, they're a football family, and they're great people."
Chang also got his family to sign off on him accepting the job, and getting their permission was not something he took lightly.
"The pressure is not just on him. It affects the entire family and if he doesn't do well, the scrutiny, it'll affect all of us — his nieces going to school, his nephews and our children in the community," Sherry Chang said. "He wanted to make sure that everyone knew what we were going to get into and if we were all on board. Right away, we were like, whatever you do, we got you."
Growing pains
After moving to the Mainland and gaining 10 years of coaching experience, Chang returned home to a massive undertaking. The vast majority of players who left via the transfer portal were already enrolled at their new schools. Some recruits who had committed decided to sign with different programs. Morale was at an all-time low for the players who stayed. All the while, the team did not have a permanent stadium to play in.
By the time the Rainbow Warriors opened fall camp, they had 53 newcomers enter the fold. Chang and his staff had to get creative in finding recruits, looking places where others wouldn't.
Local initiatives, some spearheaded by Timmy and Sherry Chang, were created in order to heal a fanbase that still had fresh wounds from the previous regime. Sherry Chang co-created the "Sistahhood Social," an event for women to learn more about the team and football in general while raising funds for the program.
In 2022, Hawai‘i was still a program that was trying to recover from years prior in real time. The Rainbow Warriors trudged through a 3-10 season with a depleted roster. Losing, and the negativity from the public that came with it, took a toll on many around the program.
"There's days I didn't want to get out of bed," Sherry Chang said. "We had definitely had a lot of dark days. I could just cry right now..."
Sherry Chang pauses. Tears start to form. Her voice breaks.
"We just love this team and these boys so much," she said. "We pour literally everything we have into this program and sacrifice so much of our family time. It just means so much to us. Trust me, it hurts us more than anybody, especially [Timmy Chang]. He's not gonna stop until it's right. I'm really proud of what he's done in three years, even though people don't necessarily see it yet.
"But I feel like what he's done with the culture and the community, he's made huge strides, and I just know the winning's going to come."
"As a first-time head coach in the first year to now, there's so much you're processing and learning and going through," Timmy Chang said when asked about the 2022 season. "And so as you go through those things, they all make you stronger. They make you better. You know what to do now. You know how to do it. You know what's important."
Moving forward
After Timmy Chang went 13-25 in his first three seasons at the helm, the growing sense around the University of Hawai‘i football team is that the hardest parts of the rebuild are over. The UH coaching staff feels as though in 2025, it finally has the team it's been painstakingly building towards.
Some recruits the staff took a chance on, such as receivers Pofele Ashlock and Nick Cenacle, have become established impact players. Meanwhile, after winning the recruiting battle for quarterback Micah Alejado, the lefty from Ewa Beach is set to fully take the reins behind center. While some players were lost to the transfer portal with six-figure promises, others resisted and stayed.
"Timmy has had to build it from under ground zero," said UH defensive tackles coach Jeff Reinebold, who witnessed Jones undergo a rebuild as a member of his SMU staff in 2008. "June had to build SMU from ground zero, but he had the assets. Timmy has had to come in and not only rebuild his roster, but he's had to fine tune his coaching staff, he's had to go out in the community and raise funds for a really underfunded program.
"What he's been able to accomplish, and now hopefully a breakthrough year, and Chris (Brown) and everybody that's contributed, we were subterranean [in 2022]. I mean, we were underneath the floor. ... This team is better, it's closer, it's tougher than it's been in a long, long time. What Timmy has done, if people see him on the street, they owe him a mahalo and a hug, because he has put this thing back in a position where we're ready to now be Hawai‘i again."
(Aloha State Daily Staff)
Looking back
Timmy and Sherry Chang own an O‘ahu house and live in it with their five children, quite the upgrade from some previous stops.
"When we think back, that's why I think we can appreciate so much of what we have now," Sherry Chang said. "We try to always treat everybody with kindness because we were once in those positions and it can be taken away from you so quickly. We try to really just be where our feet are right now, and just enjoy and appreciate a lot of the things. But yeah, it wasn't easy. We've moved schools countless amounts of times, and had children that we had to support, and so, I mean, it was rough for a little while, but I can't believe where we are now for sure."
The balance of raising five children while having the responsibility of resurrecting his alma mater is one Timmy Chang knows couldn't happen without his wife.
"She does an unbelievable job. I would not be sitting here without a rock and support like Sherry, and so very grateful," Timmy Chang said.
Although Timmy Chang's father never got to see him rise up the coaching ranks to become Hawai‘i's head coach, his presence remains.
"His dad would have freaking loved everything about this, just seeing him and seeing what he's accomplished," Sherry Chang said. "I honestly feel like, truly, when his dad passed, he definitely had a hand in Timmy's career and where it went and the success he found. They had such a close relationship, a great relationship, and I know he was a big part of shaping who he is now."
Timmy Chang attended the University of Hawai‘i against his father's initial wishes. He was eventually able to show him why.
"It was something like validation," Chang recalled of handing the record ball off to his father, which currently resides in his mother's home. "Like, this is why we stayed home, dad. We stayed home because we wanted this thing to be special, right? I wanted to bring value back to this state and make this place my home eventually.
"That's why giving that ball was so special. It was countless hours and nights and days of talking, training, success, failure, crying, getting hurt, triumph. Along the way, it's just all built up for dad. Hey, man, we did it. This is why we did it."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
