CARSON – After beginning the Cal State Dominguez Hills women's soccer program in 1984 and earning the school's first-ever National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) National Championship seven years later, coaching legend Marine Cano returns to CSUDH for his second stint as head coach after an extensive and nationwide search, it was announced by Toros Athletics Director Jeff Falkner.
 
"I want to thank Athletic Director Jeff Falkner for this great opportunity to be the women's soccer head coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills!" beams Cano.  "This is a very exciting and emotional time for me to be able to come back home to 'The Hills!'  I also want to thank Associate Athletic Director Dr. Jamie Purnell & the hiring committee for all the hard work they put in. I am very grateful.
 
"To the players, I want them to know that I will be there for them every day, on-&-off the park. They will have my full support to be able to succeed in life and with academics, and develop them into top college players. We will play to win games, and we will do it the right way.  The excitement starts now!"
 
Cano brings an impressive pedigree back to the Cardinal and Gold, a program he led to a pair of NCAA semifinal appearances, with the first in 1989.  As a Toro, Cano posted an impressive 133-58-16 (.681) record that included an even more impressive 15-6-1 (.705) ledger in California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) competition.
 
Overall, he boasts 1 NCAA Title (1991), 2 NCAA semifinal appearances (1989, 1991), 2 NCAA Far West Titles (1989, 1991), 2 CCAA Championships (1991, 1992) and 1 CCAA Coach of the Year (1989) honor.
 
"Marine's passion for soccer, Dominguez Hills and the development of student-athletes was evident during our search process," says Falkner. "Bringing him back to the program he started and led to a national championship is exciting for us all. I look forward to working with Marine to reestablish our women's soccer program as one of the very best in the country."
 
Most recently, Cano served as the founding director of soccer at NAIA's Soka University of America in 2006, adding a head coach title for the men's program in 2007.  Two years later, he added the women's program, a dual role he held for six years before focusing his efforts solely on the men's side in 2013.  Prior, he led the UC Irvine women's soccer program to a 113-96-26 record as head coach from 1993-2005.
 
Cano holds 47 years of overall coaching experience that includes 25 years coaching women's soccer at NCAA Division I, Division II and NAIA levels. He also holds USSF 'A,' 'B' and 'C' licenses as well as an NSCAA (now known as United Soccer Coaches) National Advanced License.
 
A former goalkeeper, Cano competed professionally in both the US and overseas in the American Soccer, North American Soccer, Major Indoor Soccer, American Professional Soccer, Western Soccer Alliance and Western leagues, as well as for the USA National Team (1978). 
 
Cano becomes the fifth head coach in CSUDH women soccer history, and has amassed an overall record of 322-218-58 as a coach at the Division I and Division II levels.
 
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What They're Saying:
Dan Guerrero, UCLA Athletics Director
"Marine is one of the best and most enjoyable coaches I ever had the pleasure of supervising at any level.  He is a legend in the South Bay and during my tenure with him at Dominguez Hills, our university benefited from the many relationships that he established and continues to maintain today.  He was a tenacious recruiter, always out-working other coaching colleagues, and overall was a joy to work alongside. Our women's program, during our run together at CSUDH, produced the first NCAA National Championship for the Toros."
 
Petrina Long, UCLA Associate Athletic Director/Senior Woman Administrator
"Marine is an excellent coach who knows the game and is dedicated to it.  He also is great leader and model for the department, and loves his students.  He possesses great technical knowledge and knows how to deal with different types of personalities very well.  Marine inspires both players and coaches, and is able to get the most out of his players."
 
Paul Hope, UC Irvine Senior Associate Athletic Director
"Marine coached, recruited and fundraised while at Irvine, and is terrific.  He's very passionate about soccer and his players, very organized and always well prepared."
 
Kevin Hartman, LA Galaxy Girls Academy Coach
Marine Cano was one of the most impactful coaches of my life, honest, detail oriented, hyper competitive and with lofty expectations of everyone that he encountered. Each conversation that Marine has with student-athletes is an opportunity where he can affect change, and he does it as well as anyone I've ever met. From his professional playing days and coaching National Championship teams at CSUDH to his Director roles at UC Irvine/Soka University, and his innate ability to scout, Marine's talents are unmatched. We speak regularly about the state of the game at the professional level and the national team level. We've discussed the vertical integration of players within clubs and the state of both the women's and men's programs here in the US. And as someone who has had success at the highest levels in the college game, Marine can make the Cal State Dominguez Hills women's soccer program one of the top programs in the United States again.
 
Jimmy Millender, USF Women's Soccer Head Coach
Marine Cano is an outstanding choice to come back as coach for the women at Dominguez Hills. He has won a NCAA championship there already as head coach, and brought the UC Irvine women's program to the next level. He is an outstanding coach and teacher of the game and certainly understands the Xs and Os. One of Marine's greatest strengths is his ability to recruit and develop young women, and he knows what it takes to get winning results at this level today.

Eric Miseroy, Fram SC Head Coach
Marine as a coach was tough, fair, and very clear on his expectations, standards, and plan, and it took years before I realized how the values he placed on me molded me and helped make me a leader. The old school soccer community here in the South Bay has a deep respect for him and know what he has done for the community, and that he was without a doubt a pioneer in the sport. He was instrumental in putting the South Bay on the map in the soccer world and this goes well beyond the NCAA National Championship and CCAA titles for Dominguez Hills.  Cano returning to DHills would put all the existing coaches on notice. To me, it is almost a surreal idea that he would wear the Cardinal and Gold again and I know the players who buy into his program will never regret it. To this day, when Kevin Hartman and I talk about our playing days and how tough it was (yet 10 times more rewarding), we always say that those days would never be traded for anything.  Cano changed my life, and the lives of many great people.