Calen Carr is excited to come home again.
 
A member of the 2019 class of the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame, the men's soccer alumnus (2002-05) and East Bay native hasn't been back since the spring, when he was inducted into the Lair of Legends - the Cal Soccer Hall of Fame.
 
He didn't expect this latest accolade.

"I was shocked at first," he said. "I had the honor of going into the inaugural class of the Cal Soccer Hall of Fame, just this past year. I came back and spent the weekend with fellow alumni on the men's and women's side. I had a really amazing weekend, and it was an emotional one, too. To be able to reflect back on my time on Berkeley and on my time overall was really special. I was overwhelmed by that honor, and I never really imagined I would be in the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame, let alone so soon." 

 
The Oakland-born Golden Bear alum now lives in New York, where he works for Major League Soccer in his post-playing career. But Carr – who grew up in Berkeley – will come back to Cal for the Nov. 8 enshrinement inside the Pauley Ballroom at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union.

"I try to come back several times a year, for the alumni game or to see my mom," he said. "Just growing up in North Berkeley and being a local, I have my favorite food spots and places where I like to meet up with friends. I don't get back there as much as I want. Berkeley will always be home, and I wish I could be back there more often."
 
One of the many talented Bears to play under head coach Kevin Grimes, Carr was voted the 2005 Pac-10 Player of the Year as a senior, when he scored a team-best 13 goals along with four assists and led Cal to the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time in school history. The 5-foot-11 forward also garnered Soccer America and College Soccer News first-team All-American honors and NSCAA second-team All-American status that year. He completed his college career with 22 goals and 15 assists. 
 
A three-time first-team All-Pac-10 choice, Carr earned first-team Pac-12 All-Academic honors twice. A mass communications major, Carr collected the 2005 Pac-10 Conference Medal for his performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership. 
 
"We're extremely proud of Calen and all of his accomplishments here at Cal, in MLS and in his current career as well," Grimes said. "He'll always be remembered at MLS and at Cal as a tremendous attacking player with so much explosiveness and creativity, any team would love to have him on their side. He had great heart and determination, and his attitude in the locker room was fantastic. He was a great teammate." 
 
"I would love to acknowledge Kevin Grimes and (former Cal assistant coach) Brad Agoos," Carr said. "Those two made the biggest impact on my ability to take some talent that I had at that point and combine it with some structure, some instruction and a real sense of belief so that I could succeed in college and become a professional player, too."
 
He played professionally in MLS with the Chicago Fire (he was a Fire first-round draft pick) and the Houston Dynamo from 2006-13, recording 16 goals and nine assists. Carr had arguably his best season in 2012, when he started in 17 of 26 games and scored a career-best four goals along with two assists. He added one goal – the opening goal in the 2012 MLS Cup – and two assists in the playoffs.
 
Carr, 37, currently works for MLS as a digital correspondent and producer. He's the online host and producer of "The Movement" documentary series on MLSSoccer.com and a host of the league's Extratime Radio Podcast. In 2018, "The Movement" earned the Gold Telly Award for Non-Broadcast Sports and the Bronze Telly Award for Online Documentary Webseries. 
 
After Carr retired from playing in 2013, his interest in the media – stemming in part from his childhood trips around the world with his mother, Claudia Carr – led to his current career. Claudia Carr is an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. 

 
"I was always interested in media," Calen Carr said. "I always liked to write – I wrote a little for my (Branson) high school student newspaper – and then I think more than anything I was always interested in people. I got to travel with my mom a lot when I was young, when she was doing research. We went to Jamaica, we went to Fiji, Africa, all over. I was a little bit of a de facto research assistant for her. I always brought a ball with me and met people that way.
 
"Soccer and media were ways for me to connect with people. Now that I'm working at MLS and use soccer and media, that's the happiest two worlds coming together in interesting ways. Being able to put topics that my mom researched when we traveled or that she teaches about – whether they're about people, environmental issues, policy or politics – into a soccer context is like life coming full circle for me."
 
"I'm so pleased and so happy for him," Claudia Carr said. "Cal is a center of where things have come together his whole life, with his passions for soccer, learning how to communicate with people and developing actual skills in that, and his academic training. To get this honor where his passions all came together, I couldn't be happier."

For more information on tickets to the enshrinement banquet, visit bigcsociety.org.