Steven Romero joined the Panthers ahead of the 2022-23 season to serve as the lead assistant coach beside the then-newly-named head coach, Scott Lucas.
Romero has two and a half decades of coaching experience, with the last 22 years serving as the director and lead development coach for the Cobras Wrestling and Development Club, a California based club team program that expanded into the states of Oregon and Idaho. In addition, the program serves as a pipeline for student athletes seeking to pursue careers in public safety professions, including military. He served as a volunteer assistant coach at the Titan Mercury Wrestling Club in San Marino, California, assistant, and head coach for various interscholastic high school programs in California and Oregon.
Aside from his coaching experience in club team and interscholastic programs, he has trained and coached collegiate level “All-American” wrestlers and world-level mixed martial arts athletes. Coach Romero achieved High School “All-American” honors in California (1985-86), was a Junior Nationals Freestyle placer, wrestled at El Camino College and California State University-Fullerton (1986-1989). Coach Romero competed in the U.S. senior level for various years in Greco-Roman and Freestyle. In addition to wrestling, he holds a grade 3 brown belt in Shudokan Judo, where he was a Nanka Championships Champion and USJF Nationals competitor (1988).
While a member of the Los Angeles and Hawthorne Police Departments in California, he competed in the United States Police and Fire Championships where he was a 5X time medalist and two-time Champion. He also earned a 6th place finish at the World Police and Fire Games (1991). A retired professional police chief, he serves as an executive board member for Unity Community Initiative, a non-profit organization based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, which serves as a community improvement initiative and provides scholarship opportunities nationally for college students.
Romero earned his Associates of Arts Degree in Administration of Justice from El Camino College (California), Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and his master’s degree in Public Administration; both from California State University, Fullerton.
