In the 24 years he has guided the girls water polo program as head coach, Keith Nighswonger has racked up a long list of accolades.

Of the more than 1,700 games he has coached, he has tallied 1,094 wins – a 0.631 winning percentage. And throughout his coaching experience, he has received the following recognition:

• In 2013, he won the Double-Goal Coach Award, which came with a $250 prize and a trophy.
• Five years later in 2018 – the start of the girls water polo program’s seven-year undefeated league winning streak, the Orange County Register named him Coach of the Year.
• In September, CIF listed him among the 10 coaches to receive the Champions for Character award.

Though he has yet to join former coaching colleagues Jeff Gordon (girls soccer head coach from 1990-2022), Mike Schade (boys soccer head coach from 1988 to 2023) and Tim Devaney (football coach from 1980 to 1999) as an inductee in the CIF Hall of Fame, Nighswonger earned a similar milestone – yet from a different source.

His alma mater.

Over the past summer in July, Montebello High School inducted Nighswonger into its own Oiler Athletic Hall of Fame.

“​​It is an honor to be recognized by my high school for things I have done in my professional life,” he said.

His Hall of Fame nomination stems from his coaching achievements and his representation of his alma mater through his work at Sunny Hills.

“I was nominated because of my coaching record,” Nighswonger said. “The Montebello Hall of Fame nomination was because as an alum, I apparently bring attention to [the school].”

The coach said he first learned about this recognition when he received a phone call from a Hall of Fame committee member earlier this year.

“It’s meaningful that some people feel my work has been worthy of praise,” he said. “But I do what I do regardless of recognition.” 

The Accolade has sent emails to that school’s Hall of Fame committee, but no one has replied.

According to an August edition of the “Athletics Newsletter” from Sunny Hills athletic director Paul Jones, Nighswonger graduated from Montebello in 1979; then, he began as an assistant coach there for the boys water polo team until the 1983-84 season when he got the job as boys water polo head coach in the City of Industry’s Workman High School.

But a year later in 1985, Nighswonger returned to his alma mater, where he became the boys water polo head coach until 1988. At the start of the 1989-1990 boys water polo season, the Montebello Oiler graduate ended up accepting a teaching position here, and by 1999, he started guiding the girls junior varsity softball squad before taking over as the Lady Lancers water polo head coach in 2000. He remains the program leader though he has for the first time added Riley Godfrey as a co-head coach.

Nighswonger also started guiding boys water polo from 1983 to 2022 and oversaw the boys and girls swim and dive teams for several years, though special education teacher Sergio Dorrego now heads up that part of the aquatics program.

Reflecting on his career path, Nighswonger said he recalls how his days at Montebello first sparked his interest in coaching.

“I played water polo in high school; [then] one year at East Los Angeles College and another year at Whittier College before I decided I really wanted to be a coach,” he said. “Teaching was a pathway to be involved with the sport, so I pursued [a] teaching [credential] because it would allow me to coach.”

Nighswonger, who taught social science and science at Sunny Hills before retiring from the classroom in 2023, said the drive to stay connected to the sport he loved shaped his coaching approach, emphasizing hard work and accountability as cornerstones of his coaching philosophy. 

“The ‘secret’ to success is establishing a culture of doing everything within your power the correct way,” the coach said. “There are many things we can’t control, but we do have control over how hard we work and how we treat others.”

Girls water polo player senior Cayenne Bagnol said she and her teammates learned about their leader’s Hall of Fame induction through social media.

“We discovered his accomplishments through the SH Instagram account since he didn’t share them with us directly,” Bagnol said. “This highlights his humility and modest character.”

On top of all the honors he has received, Nighswonger said he’s still motivated to help guide the Lady Lancers to another undefeated league record this season.

“I want to be consistent and stress the same message as always,” he said. “Wins come when you do enough things correctly.”