Samantha Miyahara’s relationship with athletics started when she was young. “My parents exposed me to everything when I was little… they wanted me to be a part of a team,” Miyahara said. That connection continues as Miyahara, 37, is in her sixth year as athletic director for Warren High School in Downey. Born in Garden Grove, her father was a physical education teacher, and her mother is former Long Beach City College athletic director Connie Sears.

Miyahara excelled at water polo, playing until college, where she won a national championship as a member of UCLA’s 2008 women’s water polo team. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree from UCLA and a master’s degree from Cal State Long Beach, Miyahara became a teacher and water polo coach at Marina High School in Huntington Beach. She later worked as the Marina athletic director for two years until accepting a position at Warren.

Miyahara served as activities director for Warren’s Associated Student Body for three years before becoming the school’s first female athletic director. When she’s not working, Miyahara enjoys spending time with her two children, one niece, and four nephews. I spoke with Miyahara about her life’s accomplishments.

1. What is being an athletic director like?
2. The best way I can describe it is that no two days are the same. You can come in every day, every week, every month with a really well laid-out plan of things that you need to get done on any given day. But that to-do list goes out the window really quickly because there’s just so many unexpected things in the world of athletics that end up occupying your day.
3. What is the most rewarding part of being an athletic director?
4. For me, the most rewarding part of the job is just the relationships with the student-athletes and the opportunities that athletics affords them. Just watching our athletes thrive in the sports they love.
5. Has your mother given you advice during your first years as an athletic director?
6. She definitely gave me advice. The main thing that she would teach me how to do was how to foster a relationship with those coaches, how to build that trust.
7. What does being a woman in a male-dominated industry mean for you?
8. I’m just grateful to the people who entrusted me with this opportunity, our administration here at Warren High School, our [Downey Unified School] district administration, and our Board of Education. And then to all of our coaches and to all of our athletes who accepted me. I could have met mistrust, and I didn’t.
9. How have high school athletics impacted the Downey community?
10. I think our city and specifically our district are doing a really good job of expanding opportunities to the community, to the young students coming up in the elementary schools, coming up in the middle schools, making sure that they have more opportunities and exposure to all sports.