By steve brandon 
Ricardo “Kiki” Lara spent three years with the Minnesota Thunder before signing with the Timbers. The New Mexican’s soccer education began at 4, with his mom as coach.
©2007 WILL CREW
It’s been two decades since Portland cheered wildly for a pro athlete named “Kiki.”
“Kiki Vandeweghe,” says Ricardo “Kiki” Lara, a new midfielder for the Portland Timbers.
Lara, 25, was getting ready for kindergarten when Vandeweghe began his run of high-scoring seasons with the Trail Blazers.
“I hope to become the second-most popular Kiki to play here,” Lara says, with a laugh.
A native of Las Cruces, N.M., Lara smiles and laughs easily and often.
“Tremendous attitude,” Timber coach Gavin Wilkinson says. “A fantastic player. Probably the fittest player on the team right now.”
Lara’s personality and his soccer abilities can be traced to his close-knit family. His grandmother gave him the nickname Kiki. “She called him Kiki Biki a lot,” says Linda Lara, Kiki’s mother.
Kiki’s first word was “ball,” his mom recalls. “He would be bring me a piece of paper and a crayon and say, ‘Ball, ball.’ I would draw a soccer ball, a baseball, a football … and he would stop crying and name them.”
But soccer was a foreign concept to the Laras until the oldest boy, Chico, came home from school with a YMCA flier and said he wanted to play.
Kiki was 4 at the time, and the league said it didn’t have a team for his age group because no one was available to coach.
“Kiki looked at me,” his mom says. “I was pregnant and the coaches of that age group had to run on the field with the kids, but I told them I’d do it. We all learned the sport, little by little.”
The Laras went on to launch their own soccer program, Strikers Futbol Club. One of their former players, Patrick Jurney, is a starting defender for the University of Portland. Another is playing in the Mexican First Division.
All the Lara boys played for the club, and Sam, the second-oldest, now coaches with Linda. Kiki’s younger brother, Bingy (another nickname), plays soccer for the University of Kentucky.
Kiki was the third of four children, all boys, and he always was on the smallish side.
“I’ve been playing catch-up my whole life,” says Lara, 5-10, 165 pounds.
Linda Lara wouldn’t let other coaches overlook her son, though.
“People in the United States, they want players who are big, strong and fast, and they wouldn’t pick Kiki,” she says. “I’m a short Mexican mom, and he was thin and small. I told one of the coaches, ‘You should pick him – he’s the best corner kicker in the state.’ Kiki was so embarrassed. He told me, ‘Mom, corner kicking doesn’t make you a whole player.’ ”
Kiki’s father, Leo, died about 12 years ago. A couple of years later, his mom scraped together $28,000 to send Kiki to the prestigious Bollettieri Academy in Florida for a semester.
“It did his self-esteem a world of good,” she says.
Weighing 103 pounds when he started high school, Kiki competed in wrestling. “I learned good balance and how to handle a one-beat-one situation,” he says. “Physically and mentally, wrestling is the toughest sport I’ve ever done.”
He went on to play four seasons for University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, earning a math degree and twice being named an academic All-American. “It was everything I wanted out of a college experience,” he says. “We had great team chemistry, a lot like this Timbers team has.”
He also had great chemistry with his high school sweetheart, who is two years younger and stayed in touch while he was at college.
Kiki and Ashley got married in July 2004, and he joined her in Pullman, Wash. – coaching her in soccer as an assistant on the staff at Washington State. They handled the husband-wife/coach-player relationship well. “And up there, we didn’t have much to do but pay attention to each other,” he says.
Ashley, a dietitian, is in Portland with Kiki as he tries to help the Timbers rebound from missing the playoffs last season (Portland is at Seattle on Saturday).
“She’s been my most loyal fan, in every way,” he says. “She believes in me.”
Kiki would someday like to teach math and coach soccer. “Ideally get hold of a college program,” he says.
“I’m very proud of him,” Linda Lara says, “because he’s worked hard for everything he has.”
Kiki, who played against the Timbers as a member of the Minnesota Thunder the last three years, helps with the coaching duties during offseason visits to Las Cruces.
“We all have a love for children and a love for people,” says Linda Lara, an elementary school counselor and therapist for families with disabled young children. “I’ve taught them the art of giving, and all my boys are really, really good with kids.”
stevebrandon@portlandtribune.com
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