Coasters: Bill Barnett

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - The golden memory of last year was Newport Harbor

High Coach Bill Barnett getting tossed overboard after his girls won the

CIF Southern Section Division I championship at Belmont Plaza Olympic

Pool.

It was fitting, in a way, how an Olympic pool was required to engulf

the water polo coaching giant.

Barnett earned near-legendary status in the aquatics world at Newport

Harbor with 10 CIF championships and seven other trips to the section’s

large-school division finals from 1967 to 1987, a reign unparalleled by

any other school in Orange County.

Later, Barnett became a two-time U.S. Olympic water polo coach and the

FINA Coach of the Year.

But last year, in the fourth year of girls water polo as an official

Southern Section sport, Barnett reached unchartered waters, winning a CIF

Division I title -- a first as a girls coach -- as the Sea View League

champion and second-seeded Sailors (23-6) defeated Irvine in the

championship match at Belmont.

A fiery coach who arrived at Newport Harbor in 1966 and coached Olympic teams in 1988 and ‘92, Barnett guided relative newcomers to the

sport to a CIF championship. Some of his girls had no water polo

experience before joining the high school squad. Barnett, on the other

hand, has been in charge when the U.S. captured the silver medal at the

‘88 Seoul Games and fourth place at the ’92 Barcelona Games.

“This is just as exciting as it was with the boys, (and) maybe more

so,” Barnett said, following his team’s semifinal victory over Villa

Park. “(Our girls) are so excited, and they’re very appreciative, too.”

Barnett’s superpower boys program has produced three Olympic water

polo standouts -- Eric Lindroth, Kevin Robertson and James Bergeson --

while Barnett himself has been connected to the U.S. Olympic team for

almost two decades.

In 1972, Lindroth played on the bronze-medal winning U.S. team at the

Munich Games, after leading Newport Harbor to CIF titles in 1967 and ’68.

He earned CIF Player of the Year honors in ‘68, before starring at UCLA.

Robertson, a two-time CIF 4-A Player of the Year (1975 and ‘76),

played on two silver-medal winning Olympic teams in 1984 at Los Angeles

and ’88 at Seoul. Both times the U.S. lost to Yugoslavia in the

gold-medal game.

Bergeson, also a two-time CIF 4-A Player of the Year (1977 and ‘78),

was a four-time All-American at Stanford who led the Cardinal to NCAA

titles in 1982 and ‘83, and played on the ’88 silver-medal winning

Olympic squad.

“There have been a lot of good ones,” Barnett said of his Newport

Harbor players.

This year, as Team USA prepares for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney,

Australia, Barnett will once again be part of the equation as an

assistant coach for John Vargas.

Officially, Barnett is the Chairman of the men’s International Olympic

Committee, which oversees the national team. Scouting, video taping and

game analysis are among Barnett’s duties.

“We make one main scouting report for each team, print it out and hand

it to the players, then go over it with the players at the meetings,

along with video clips,” Barnett said.

Since returning from the team’s European trip Aug. 14, Barnett is

enjoying a couple of weeks at home, before heading to Sydney. Team USA

will open against Croatia Sept. 23, then play Yugoslavia, Hungary, Greece

and Holland. The top three teams in the group advance to the Olympic

quarterfinals. The U.S. will play five straight days during the Olympics,

take a day off, play two days in a row, take a day off, then hopefully

compete in the medal rounds.

At the 1996 Atlanta Games, the U.S. finished a disappointing seventh

under Rich Corso.

“(Water polo is) the last week of the Olympics,” said Barnett,

entering his third Olympiad. “The gold medal game is on the very last day

of the Olympics.”

Asked whether he will participate in the Games’ closing ceremonies,

Barnett quipped: “I suppose. Either that or I’ll probably be in some bar

having a Foster’s.”

Assistant coach Brian Kreutzkamp will operate the Newport Harbor boys

water polo program while Barnett is in Australia. “(Kreutzkamp) handles

the boys, anyway, for the most part,” Barnett said.

Barnett lives in Laguna Beach with his wife of 34 years, Marcia. They

have two grown children.