When Omar Pena reached the end of his playing career in pro baseball with the Worcester Tornadoes in 2010, he was already looking ahead.

“I’d always been a sponge with baseball stuff,’’ said Pena, now 34.

“Every coach tells you to adjust this, try that. I was always trying everything. That was me. I was obsessed with baseball, obsessed with working on my swing, trying to find different ways to do things. Once I was finished playing ball, I had so many ideas, I had to coach. I wanted to teach all the stuff I learned. Getting into coaching was an easy decision. It was a layup.’’

His parents still lived in Haverhill — they have since relocated to Florida where Pena’s older brother, Carlos, the former major league first baseman and Northeastern great, has retired. But Omar headed to Los Angeles.

“I decided to get to a place with warmer weather,’’ he said.

“I wanted to coach all year round so I came out here. Over there, it’s a little difficult to do your thing.’’

Pena has been coaching baseball at the Windward School, a private high school in Los Angeles, since 2011 — first as an assistant, then as associate head coach. Next spring, he will take over as the head coach. He runs clinics at the school and does instructional work on the side as well.

This spring, he also helped out as an assistant baseball coach at Caltech, a college that is high-powered in academics, not so much in athletics.

“They’re not there for sports,’’ Pena said.

“We’d have some ballplayers who couldn’t come to practice because they had a meeting with NASA, or they had a speech they had to give. These kids go out to play catch, but do some real interesting stuff academically. You have to be patient with them and know they’re not out there necessarily to win games, but they’re trying to let off a little steam.’’

It was all part of the learning process for Pena.

“I’ve been trying to challenge myself and grow a little bit and get a little better as a coach,’’ he said.

After helping propel Northeastern (27-26) to the America East title in 2003 — he hit .304 making 49 starts —Pena was drafted in the 16th round of the amateur draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. He played eight years of minor league ball, the majority of his time at shortstop at the Single A level.

He was with the Tornadoes for five seasons, staying with the independent franchise in the Can-Am league in large part because of the presence of Rich Gedman, the former Red Sox catcher, who was the team’s manager.

“He was like a mentor,’’ Pena said. “I learned a lot from him.

“You can relate a lot of things from baseball to life. You can use things like having a thick skin and staying focused on your task. A big thing is not getting discouraged when you have setbacks. Baseball’s a game of failure and you’ve got to know how to roll with the punches and not get frustrated. That’s my motto: Try to stay positive and push forward.’’

Allen Lessels can be reached at lessfam321@gmail.com.