The 2018 season is the first for Kurt Kagawa as an assistant coach for the Chaminade University men's soccer team.

Kagawa has extensive coaching experience locally. He was an assistant of Jayson Abe's coaching staff at Mid-Pacific Institute for several seasons and took over the Owls' program as head coach after Abe departed for Chaminade in 2016. He also had two stints as an assistant with Mililani High School's varsity squad in 2004-05 then again from 2014 to '16. Two of his teams were league champions with Mid-Pacific (Interscholastic League of Honolulu Boys Intermediate, 2012) and Mililani (O'ahu Interscholastic Association Boys Varsity, 2005) while the Owls finished as Hawai'i High School Athletic Association Division II state runners-up in 2013.

Kagawa is currently the head coach of the Hawai'i Heat FC '01 Girls club squad. He previously was the head coach for the Honolulu Bulls Soccer Club ('98 and '99 Boys) from 2015 to '17 and was head coach of the Slammers FC '98 Boys in '15. He also served as a college coach for the Pro-Xtreme Soccer Camps and Wembley Soccer Academy.

Kagawa is a 2000 graduate of Mililani High School where he helped guide the Trojans to three OIA titles. He attended Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., where he was a Northwest Conference honorable mention honoree (2002) while helping the Pirates to a conference title in '01. He also was decorated for academics, earning a mention with the NSCAA/Adidas Men's Scholar All-West Region Second Team and twice earned District 8 All-Academic honors.

Kagawa graduated from Whitworth with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science in 2004 then received his Juris Doctor degree from the Maurice A. Dean School of Law from Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y. He was admitted to the Hawai'i State Bar in 2009.