Area coaches mourn loss of Del Oro’s Mike Takayama

Mike Takayama was a coach defined by dignity, success and selflessness.

He was beloved by his players, revered by his peers, and only once did the financial planner by day and girls basketball coach by night boast about himself.

Takayama loved his biceps, once insisting they were Popeye-sized, bulbous and strong. He called them “bouncer guns” that shouldn’t be concealed by sleeves.

“Great guns!” he once told The Sacramento Bee.

Area coaches reflected on Takayama – affectionately called “Taka” – on Tuesday after the longtime Del Oro High School girls basketball coach died Monday after suffering a heart attack. He was 56.

Takayama was the second girls basketball coach in Sac-Joaquin Section history to win more than 600 games at one school, joining Bill Baxter, the former El Camino coach now serving as an assistant at Sacramento State. He received The’s Bee Coach of the Year honors in basketball and softball, also at Del Oro. In his 29-year girls basketball tenure, he directed the Golden Eagles to two section titles, 18 league championships and 28 playoff berths. In seven years guiding the softball team, Del Oro won three league titles and two section crowns and in 1994 finished No. 1 in the state in Division II.

Takayama used a cerebral, friendly approach to bring out the best in his players.

“It’s a blow to his family, the Del Oro community and to all of the coaches for what he stood for, how he carried himself, how his kids play with a great deal of sportsmanship and class,” said longtime St. Francis coach Vic Pitton, who coached against Takayama on Saturday in a summer league game. “He looked fine to me the other day. He’ll be missed. Just very sad.”

Said Antelope coach Sean Chambers: “Mike was the best gentleman, always, and he coached the right way. He made that program a power. Didn’t matter if he beat you or lost to you, he was always class. My first big win as a coach was when I was at Highlands, in 2000, and we upset Del Oro in the playoffs. I’ll never forget that. Never beat him again, though, but that was never a bad thing.”

Takayama gained a sense of work ethic from his father, Yoshio, who put his only son to work on the family plum orchard in Newcastle in the 1960s and ’70s. Takayama would rapidly drive 24 nails into wooden crates, often under a searing sun, when he wasn’t laying down irrigation pipes, hard work that helped pay his way through UC Davis.

“That’s where I learned to work,” he said. “I made five cents a crate. I could make a box in 43 seconds. That’s what I’ve taken from (my dad). He used to explain how to work hard, do it the right way. He was my No. 1 fan. My dad isn’t here (he died of cancer in 1981), but I can feel him smiling down on me.”

The hammering and lifting built his biceps, and Takayama muscled his way through Del Oro as an all-league baseball and basketball player in the 1970s. He also held his own in arm wrestling competitions on campus, telling The Bee several years ago, “I never lost! I was the wrist wrestling champion.”

Takayama is survived by his wife, Kathy, and their son, Ryan, a mechanical engineering student at Nevada. Funeral services are pending.

This story was originally published June 21, 2016 at 4:56 PM with the headline "Area coaches mourn loss of Del Oro’s Mike Takayama."