Warren Nagano, who guided Tesoro to a CIF-SS Division III championship this spring, announced his retirement as the Titans' head coach.

Nagano spent two seasons as the coach at Tesoro, compiling a record of 43-13. The Titans started off this season with a 19-game winning streak before losing four of their final six regular season games.

Tesoro went from the top-ranked team in Division III to being a wild-card team. The Titans regained their form in the playoffs and won six consecutive games to take the championship with a 4-0 victory over Glendora in the finals.

Tesoro was ranked No. 1 in the final OCVarsity power rankings and No. 14 in the state by CalHiSports.com.

Nagano, 61, said he will continue teaching Social Science at Los Flores Middle School. Nagano said the main reason he is retiring from coaching is he wanted more time to pursue his life-long dream.

"Retirement from coaching will not be a retreat from challenge; instead it will allow me to pursue a life-long dream," Nagano said in a statement. "With the additional time I will be able to continue my art and substantially add to my portfolio of paintings and to publish prints of my work within the commercial fine art market."

I always found Nagano to be very intelligent and insightful the way he analyzed his team and Tesoro's opponents. He was able to navigate the Titans' late season struggles and pull together the strong-minded personalities on his team and guide them to a championship.

I only knew Nagano for a short time, but I wish him well as he pursues his dream.

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