Sep. 23rd, 2003 - Friends reunite on field
Kayla Anderson
Staff Writer
Ex-men's lacrosse head coach Steve Dini knows.
He coached him. The assistant coaches know, too. They grew up playing against him.
And now the players know, because he's coaching them.
When it comes to lacrosse, new head coach Rob Warner, knows his stuff.
Some of it can be attributed to Dini, who recently passed the coaching torch to Warner, one of his former players.
Dini left Chico and returned to the Bay Area to be closer to family and friends. But he wasn't willing to leave his sport behind, so he picked up a job as a lacrosse coach at University of California, Berkeley.
Warner, on the other hand, moved to Chico and is now closer to his friends.
Warner, 24, grew up with Chico State assistant coaches Dan and Don Collins, playing with them in junior high. He played against them in college and now he's working with them.
Warner has been playing lacrosse for 14 years, dating back to middle school in San Diego. He kept with it and went on to play at UC Berkeley for four years.
He still plays lacrosse for a men's club team based in San Diego, but made up of players from throughout California. Through lacrosse, Warner kept in touch with his friends who coached at Chico State.
Collins and Warner played against each other in college, while Warner was at UC Berkeley and Collins was at Sonoma State.
"UC Berkeley and Sonoma had the two best teams in California, and there was good rivalry," Collins said.
Warner played on an all-star lacrosse team that Dini took to Japan, and later became an assistant coach for that team. Warner prepared himself for the transition from playing lacrosse to coaching it after helping Dini coach lacrosse camps.
Even though Collins and Warner have both played and coached together, Collins said he doesn't know if who the better players is.
"I can't compare because we played two different positions. He's a great player though," Collins said, laughing. "When we were 12 or 13 years old, Rob had just started playing. He just became a goalie and I was playing offense. I took a shot at Rob and he didn't have a cup at the time. Then he decided it was a good idea to get a cup."
This year, Warner looks to take a shot, not at Collins, but at a national title.
Last year, under Dini, Chico State took 10th place in the 16-team national collegiate tournament.
Dini said he has coached or recruited every player at Chico State. He said it will be a hard experience to play against them now that he is on the other side of the lines.
But Dini said Warner will be a great coach for Chico State.
"They will be good national contenders this year," Dini said.
Even though lacrosse is mainly a spring sport, a lot of preparation is done in the fall for later tournaments and it also has fall training and recruiting in October. Although it has no official games yet, every weekend it has an event, said Warner.
In the fall, the lacrosse team has inter-squad tournaments and one against Oregon. It holds alumni games and a parent's weekend, with practice three days a week.
New players are getting to know Warner during practice.
One of the new members, Eric Sileta, described Warner as being "confident and respectful; he seems like he knows the game."
Ex-coach Dini agreed.
"Certain coaches have a special demeanor with players that make them respectful," Dini said. "He's professional, compassionate, disciplined, and organized, and will be an excellent coach for the Chico State team."
This article originally appeared in the Orion Online.