There are few similarities between soccer and acting, Tristian Eggerling says. And he should know since he’s both a forward with OC Sporting White in the fourth-tier United Premier Soccer League Division 1 and an actor whose credits include TV’s “Modern Family” and the big-screen slasher “Halloween Kills.”
“They are polar opposite,” he said. “One of them is very much about having a mental will to push yourself and push through pain and just have kind of a stubbornness to you.”
That would be soccer.
“The other one is much more about getting into a feel of empathy and really getting in tune with your emotions,” he adds. “You’re playing a fantasy but it’s about getting your head into that fantasy.”
That would be acting.
Yet Eggerling, who is exceptional at both, isn’t sure he’ll continue much longer with either. A 17-year-old senior who attends school online, Eggerling has a 4.6 grade-point average and a passion for engineering. So while being an athlete or an actor — much less both — may be a dream for many, it’s just not his dream.
“Ever since I was 10, when we toured JPL, I’ve wanted to be an engineer for NASA,” Eggerling said. “It just feels more part of my identity. I have natural talent in math and academics. I feel like those are more useful tools for life than playing soccer, acting.”
Which isn’t to say he’s giving up either for the time being.
“I just do it because I really love [it],” he said. “It’s just so much fun to play a role or play a sport.”
Eggerling followed his brother Gabe into acting, making his debut at age 4. He then followed his father in soccer; Christian Eggerling played for 17 years but never had the chance to go pro in those pre-MLS days. His son, he says, can do that.
“I had my gifts and he’s three steps ahead of me,” said the elder Eggerling, 54, the executive director of hospitality and culinary operations at City of Hope. “He’s got some real potential.”
However Eggerling’s coach Paul Caligiuri, who was a pro, playing 110 times for the U.S. national team and making seven World Cup starts, is pumping the brakes a bit on those expectations.
“I don’t think he’s on pace to go pro right now,” Caligiuri said. “But he’s a very unique individual in terms of how quick he learned. [From] when I started coaching him to where he’s at now, is just amazing, amazing progress.
“He has that mindset. And also the fact that he’s a great actor, it’s like his lifestyles are quite unique to be successful in all these levels.”
After Eggerling had been with the UPSL team a while and it was obvious he could hold his own, Caligiuri began introducing him to teammates as an actor.
“And the guys go ‘No way!’ And then you see the acceptance level strengthen because it’s cool to be an actor,” Caligiuri said.
Eggerling, who lives in Orange, isn’t the first person to juggle acting and soccer. Andrew Shue (“Melrose Place,” “The Rainmaker”) played five games for the Galaxy in the inaugural MLS season while Eric Braeden, who won a Daytime Emmy Award for his portrayal of the villainous Victor Newman on “The Young and the Restless,” led the Maccabee Los Angeles Soccer Club to the U.S. Open Cup title in 1973. More recently Jenna Ortega (“Scream,” “Beetlejuice”), who made her acting debut at 10, said she nearly gave up Hollywood for soccer as a grade-schooler.
The acting world, Eggerling says, is far more competitive than soccer.
“Very brutal,” he said. “It was nice and naive in soccer. Once we started to get into higher-end clubs, we were like ‘this feels familiar.’ Because acting, [from] the very get-go, it is extremely competitive.”
Yet for all the differences, the two can be complementary.
“With soccer, it’s a lot about having a mental toughness to you. Soccer taught me how to work hard,” he said. “You can obviously apply that to acting.”
His parents have been key to his success. His father the chef monitors his diet and, because Eggerling hasn’t found time to get a driver’s license, his mother, Melissa, carts him to auditions and soccer practices.
“A lot of driving. Put a lot of cars into the grave,” Christian Eggerling said. “It makes for early mornings and late nights sometimes. And making sure all the laundry is done in between.”
The parents say they also make sure it’s not about them because they’ve seen far too many children who have been pushed to continue acting or soccer long after they stopped enjoying it. If Tristian ever feels that way, they say, it will be his call to quit or stay, not theirs.
“You don’t want to play another season, I’m good with that,” Melissa Eggerling said. “But you don’t stop something in the process, because there’s other people [involved]. He has surrounded himself around people who have more and know more than him, because that’s how you build yourself up. That’s how you grow.
“You can’t let people down that are backing you and are there for you, but you can stop or shift gears and do something else, if that’s what you want to do.”
Eggerling’s next stop could be England, where he’ll have to find his own way around. After impressing during a trial there last summer, he could be returning next year to play soccer and study engineering in Newcastle. Where that would lead him is uncertain, but with either his soccer talents or the nest egg of money he’s saved from Hollywood funding his college education, Eggerling is unusually well prepared for the next act.
“The next play is the most important play,” he said, repeating a lesson he learned from Caligiuri. “You never close a door. You always keep your options open.”
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