The following is an entry from Wes Nakama's "Prep Talk" blog, posted on Friday. Comment on this and other blog entries at www.honoluluadvertiser.com

Every high school sport has its unsung heroes — people behind the scenes who make things better for all involved largely through volunteer work that may not be noticed by the general public.

In high school soccer, especially on O'ahu, one of those people is Chester Chee.

He's not a coach or administrator, and he's not a referee.

Chester is the parent of former high school players, but unlike most parents, his involvement and donation of time to the sport did not end once his kids graduated.

As mentioned in the other day's main blog entry, we at The Advertiser cannot be at every game and so we usually rely on high schools to call in their scores and stats to us every night so that we can prepare them to be published in the next day's paper.

For ILH and OIA soccer, we rely on one person: Chester.

Every night during the soccer regular season, coaches from all over the island call him to report scores and goal scorers. Chester collects all of this data at home, then sends us the complete information in time for us to get it into the next day's paper.

On Sundays, he sends us updated standings and leading goal scorers for each league: boys and girls — ILH, OIA East, West and White.

Nobody pays Chester to do this; he does it all pro bono.

And it doesn't end once the regular season is over. Every year, he takes time off from work to attend the boys and girls state tournaments, even on Maui, to help out with stats. Before the tournament, for the seeding committee meetings, he shares information from the season's results to help the committee make more informed decisions.

Like many parents, Chester got involved with soccer when his kids did. But unlike most parents, he has continued it for over 10 years after his youngest kid graduated.

And the thing is, he does it all with a smile and friendly attitude, as if he's the lucky one to get to do all of this for us.

No, Chester, we are the lucky ones. As HHSAA director of information Natalie Webb said last night (and she's not the first one to say it), "Every sport should have a Chester."

I agreed, and immediately instructed Nat to take Chester to Kinkos and make 20 copies of him.

If only it were possible ...

Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com.