Girls water polo: Where’s the heater?

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - On the heels of the frostiest night in recent

memory, a broken boiler remained at the Newport Harbor High Olympic Pool,

where the school’s girls water polo team was forced to move its Sea View

League game Wednesday against Woodbridge because the water was too cold.

“We’re down to one boiler ... it should’ve been fixed in December, but

it wasn’t because the school district drug its feet,” said Newport Harbor

Coach Bill Barnett, whose team hosted Woodbridge at Corona del Mar in a

13-2 victory for the highly regarded Sailors.

“Our pool’s swimmable. It’s not intolerable, but it’s much nicer in

warmer waters. We played here only because she (Woodbridge Coach Dion

Gray) wanted us to go out to her pool.”

Barnett said he wouldn’t travel to Woodbridge and moved his home game

to Back Back rival CdM. “We were fortunate Corona was playing away and we

could use the pool,” Barnett said.

Gray said she only found out from her school’s athletic secretary at

about noon that the game was being switched from Newport Harbor to CdM.

“I just go where they point me,” Gray said. “This is as nice a pool as

Newport Harbor’s, so it didn’t matter to me, and obviously it didn’t

matter to them.”

Barnett said he doesn’t expect to lose another home game, and

Newport-Mesa School District officials have promised a Feb. 15 completion

date for the pool’s broken boiler unit.

The date, however, would follow the first round of the CIF Southern

Section Division I playoffs, but Barnett insisted his team will play at

home against nonleague foe Coronado in 1 1/2 weeks and in the opening

round of the playoffs.

“They’re used to the cold water ... they play in the ocean,” Barnett

said tongue-in-cheek about Coronado’s always-tough players. “Our pool’s

not unplayable.”

Newport Harbor Athletic Director Eric Tweit said Wednesday the water

in the pool has been cold since early December. The girls varsity water

polo team has been practicing at CdM and the JV squad at Costa Mesa.

Other programs, such as the Pacific Coast Aquatics Club, have also

suffered.

“I’m certainly no pool expert, but the water temperature a lot of days

has been down to 74 or 75 degrees (compared to the preferred 80-degree

temperature),” Tweit said. “It’s not like outside temperature. One degree

can mean a lot.

“I was running early one morning at about 6 a.m. and I heard a loud

yell. I was a half mile from the school and heard it. And I found out it

was one of our girls jumping in our pool ... it’s been very, very cold. A

lot of parents are concerned.”

Most pools are regulated to stay at 78 degrees or higher. The pool at

Newport Harbor has two boilers; the other is working.

Tweit said the Sailors (17-4) “will get a first-round home game in the

playoffs (as Sea View League champions), but probably won’t be allowed to

use our home pool ... that’s where we’re at.”

Tweit added the last time the district promised to fix the pool on a

due date, it delivered on schedule.