{"id":270369,"date":"2017-08-01T05:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=270369"},"modified":"2017-07-31T23:19:07","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T06:19:07","slug":"catching-up-with-dante-dettamanti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/catching-up-with-dante-dettamanti\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up with Dante Dettamanti"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

Dante Dettamanti<\/strong> is a consistent\u2014if sometimes lonely\u2014voice for change within the international water polo establishment. One of the most successful coaches in the history of American intercollegiate polo, Dettamanti\u2014or Coach D as he is affectionately known\u2014believes that our national team should reflect the size and attributes of American players, and not look to emulate the Yugoslavian\u2014now known as Serbian\u2014school of water polo, which currently dominates the sport.<\/p>\n

\"sc00027cb1\"

Dettamanti at Stanford. Photo Courtesy: D. Dettamanti.<\/p><\/div>\n

Coach Dettamanti is no stranger to dominance; while coaching Stanford University\u2019s men\u2019s team from 1977 \u2013 2001, he won a total of 570 matches. His Cardinal teams won 8 NCAA championships, and he remains the only coach in American intercollegiate athletics to have won championships in four different decades. His 666 wins from tenures at Occidental College (1971-73), UC Santa Barbara (1974-76) and Stanford make Dettamanti one of only two coaches in NCAA water polo history to top 600 wins.<\/p>\n

Preaching a message that movement is essential to the future of water polo, Dettamanti points out that teams from Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro emphasize size and strength specifically because their players are larger than players from any other teams in the world. Advocating a change in focus for countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and his native United States, he suggests these and other non-Balkan countries employ a movement offense that takes advantage of smaller, faster players to create offensive flow decidedly different from the center-dominated approach now in vogue.<\/p>\n

Dettamanti spoke recently about the Team USA\u2019s 15-7 loss to Japan in the 2017 FINA World Championships<\/strong>\u2014the Americans\u2019 first-ever loss to the Japanese\u2014the status of the U.S. Men\u2019s National Team, and what it will take to put American men\u2019s polo back among the best programs in the world.<\/p>\n

Is the loss to Japan one of the worst ever suffered by the US men\u2019s water polo team?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s not the most humiliating loss ever, because Japan is a pretty darn good team. And the system they play gives a lot of teams trouble. The smallest team in terms of size of the players, they qualified for the Olympics [in Rio] for the first time in over 40 years by using a pressure defense, fast moving driving and counterattack on offense unique to their team.<\/p>\n

The key to the Japanese system is that they play according to the players they have. It\u2019s very similar to what I played for years at Stanford that emphasize driving and counterattack. We had a darn good counterattack when I was coaching at Stanford.<\/p>\n

They do several things that is different than what other teams in the world do. First they start in a high press position. They almost invite you to drive. They force you to commit to a driving attack and then take advantage of your attack by countering you when you lose the ball.<\/p>\n

Being in the press position throughout their opponent\u2019s possession leads to a very effective counterattack. Most teams in the world do not do this. They usually play in a zone [defense]. It\u2019s very difficult to counter from a zone, so you don’t see the counterattack like we used to have years ago when we pressed.<\/p>\n

[American teams] used to press a lot, and we used to counter a lot. Back in the years when we had movement, and we had driving and we had counterattacks the United States was consistently top four or five in the world.<\/p>\n

Now in the present system\u2014which most teams use \u2014the counterattack and driving are almost non-existent.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to beat the Japanese you\u2019re going to have to outscore them. They produce a lot of goals. With Japan countering up and down the pool, their opponent starts to get tired. Japan has made so many second half comebacks because they wear teams down. And the U.S. was just not able to keep up. We scored only seven goals in that game\u2014we didn\u2019t even reach 10.<\/p>\n

You mentioned that the Japanese system suits their players. How does this compare and\/or contrast with the current U.S. approach to their personnel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, international water polo has become a big man\u2019s game. You look at the rosters for the last three Olympics, and 99% of the players are over six feet tall. When I started coaching at Stanford [in 1977] half my team was 5-10 to 5-11. Look at the rosters today of the top four colleges; almost every player\u2019s over six feet tall.<\/p>\n

The problem is, people who are big in our country play football, they play basketball\u2014they play other sports. We do have good athletes in water polo, but our best athletes are those that are 5-8 to 6-2. Like the Japanese, we have one thing going for them: we have excellent swimmers.<\/p>\n

The Europeans don\u2019t grow up swimming like the Americans do; [ours] is a swimming culture. We have to take advantage of that. We\u2019re trying to play the European system, the Yugoslavian system which caters to the big players. The rules of the game now\u2014as long as we have this rule [where] the ball goes into the center forward and [results in an] exclusion\u2014this is what coaches are playing for. They don\u2019t care about moving. And if you do move a lot of times the referees will call an offensive foul. That hurts the movement part of the game.<\/p>\n

There are so many things that have added to the fact that we don’t move or drive any more. To cater to our players we have got to do that kind of a system. But the problem is we keep hiring Serbian or Croatian coaches here in the United States\u2014[Dejan]<\/strong> Udovicic<\/strong> and [Ratko] Rudic<\/strong>\u2014coaches who don\u2019t play that system.<\/p>\n

As long as we have Serbian or Croatian coaches, we\u2019re not going to play that system. They are trying to fit the players into their system, rather than fit the system to the players we have in this country.<\/p>\n

Given what\u2019s happened at FINA Worlds should this be a wake-up call for Team USA coaches?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Possibly. The wake-up call should have been at the [Rio] Olympic Games. We did not make top eight. That’s the first time in history we\u2019ve not made top eight. There\u2019s your wake-up call right there.<\/p>\n

Since Rio, Dejan might have thought more about using some smaller players, He did include some players this time who were a little smaller\u2014[Johnny] Hooper, [Max] Irving.<\/p>\n

Hooper is the poster boy for USA Water Polo\u2019s Olympic Development Program (ODP); John Abdou specifically praised<\/a> him when we spoke last month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Johnny

Johnny Hooper. Photo Courtesy: Catharyn Hayne<\/p><\/div>\n

They\u2019re claiming Hooper\u2019s been in the system\u2014but it had little to do with our ODP system. The kid was developed in high school and the clubs; it wasn\u2019t ODP that developed him. They have changed their opinion about him in the past year. He was a great player when he was 15, 16 and 17 years old, probably the best in our country. But, in our system, they turned down Hooper to be on the national youth team because they said he was too small. He was denied the chance to be on our USA Youth and Junior team. Just think if he had been on our national youth team and our national junior team, and all the experience that he would have gained.<\/p>\n

Here there\u2019s the problem of universities. When a kid is in college, there\u2019s nine months right there where it\u2019s difficult for them to work out with the national team. They\u2019re playing for their university\u2019s team and they have academic requirements\u2014they just can\u2019t take time off. There are several university coaches who will not allow players to train with the national team\u2014maybe for only a week or two before a world championship. Some of our college coaches are not allowing their players to train full time with the national team. Even in the summer they\u2019re keeping their guys at home, and only allowing them guys to take off for one week of training and two weeks of playing overseas before a major tournament. But that\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough on Dejan to deal with that. He\u2019s trying to play his own system which doesn\u2019t fit our players; and then he doesn\u2019t have enough practice time\u2026 all these new players who are on the team this year. There\u2019s three or four new guys; they\u2019ve had very little practice time with the national team.<\/p>\n

What positives can we take from a very challenging experience at FINA Worlds?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The only way that it\u2019s going to change is if the coach changes his system, a system that he\u2019s done his whole life, and he starts catering to American players. Or we get a new coach. We get an American coach who can play this sort of system.<\/p>\n

The problem is, we have very few American coaches who can play this sort of system anymore, because they\u2019re now copying the European system too. Much of the same system being played in Europe is played by our college coaches. We have a little more movement by driving or counterattacking at the college level. We actually have more movement on the women\u2019s side than on the men\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

The question is: can we find a coach here in the US who is willing to make the necessary changes and play to the talents of the players that we have in this country?<\/p>\n

But the leadership at USA Water Polo\u2014not just the coach\u2014has embraced this coaching philosophy. Can we expect them to dispense with all that even given this bad result?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest problem is that the leadership of United States water polo does not know what\u2019s going on\u2014as far as understanding the game, as far as understanding what we need. John Abdou<\/strong> does, more than anybody else; but he doesn\u2019t have the power to change anything.<\/p>\n

If you look at our top administrators, they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. They see Dejan and that he was coach of a team that won championship after championship, and they won all these medals. But they overlooked the fact that he was let go by Serbia because he did not achieve the result they wanted, a gold medal. They overlooked the fact that we don\u2019t have the same kind of players in this country that they have in Serbia.<\/p>\n

What will it take to overcome the style that currently dominates men\u2019s water polo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As long as we have the current rules they\u2019re going to continue to play this style. There\u2019s kind of a revolution\u2014if that\u2019s what you want to call it\u2014going on now in international water polo. There\u2019s going to be some possible changes made in the game, there\u2019s going to be some new people in the TWPC [FINA\u2019s Technical Water Polo Committee], possibly a new president of FINA [Dr. Julio C. Maglione<\/strong> was re-elected]. They want to make some changes; because they are afraid that if we don\u2019t play a more dynamic game that we could lose our position at the Olympic games. If that happens, water polo is done as an international sport.<\/p>\n

We’re counting on FINA to support us. We\u2019re caught in a situation where we should be on our own but do we need FINA to support us? If we go on our own will we lose that support from FINA?<\/p>\n

I personally believe that the support from FINA is not that great! FINA cares more about swimming than it does about water polo. They just reduced two players on every water polo roster for the Olympic games to allow them to add three swimming events, because there\u2019s a limit on the number of athletes at the Olympic games.<\/p>\n

I would like to see us have our own international organization for water polo. All we have in common with swimming, synchro and diving is that we all use the water. That is like saying that track and field and basketball should be under the same umbrella because they are both played on land.<\/p>\n

Is this a moment where people who care about water polo force the changes necessary to make the sport better?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope so. The problem is that most coaches and the people in water polo have been content going along with what we\u2019ve been doing all these years. I\u2019ve been warning that something like this was going to happen for the past three or four years. Nobody cared to listen\u2014I was pretty much ignored.<\/p>\n

\"sc00022553\"

Dettamanti speaking with his 1986 Stanford team, also an NCAA champion.<\/p><\/div>\n

The straw that broke the camel\u2019s back is when FINA decided to reduce the number of players on a water polo roster. That motivated all these international coaches who before this had been complacent\u2014if you\u2019re a coach from one of those countries, why would you want to make any changes? You\u2019ve got to decide: are we playing this game for the good of the sport, or are we only concerned about winning medals?<\/p>\n

Coaches from countries like Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro\u2014they\u2019re winning medals. In the past they could have cared less. They were fine with the system we\u2019re playing right now. But going to 11 players showed that FINA doesn\u2019t care about water polo, and it also showed that they are willing to sacrifice water polo for swimming.<\/p>\n

Water polo should be a game that can be played by everybody. That is the only way that we can expand our sport around the world. The rules should be for everybody. We have very few countries in the world that play water polo. Part of that is because of pool space, economics, etc.\u2014there\u2019s a lot of problems with the sport. But when we don\u2019t play a game that caters to people from other countries, we\u2019re not going to draw more countries to play this sport.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit like the situation with American baseball. The only players who get to the major leagues are those who have been groomed through the American system.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve used the example of Rugby Sevens. They\u2019ve changed the sport from big and slow Rugby Union to a more dynamic game; and it\u2019s now the second most popular sport in the world after soccer. It is exciting, it\u2019s fast\u2026 they added movement! This is what we\u2019re missing in our sport. All the best sports in the world have movement\u2014movement with and without the ball.<\/p>\n

Other sports are attacking; in basketball you drive to the basket, in soccer you move with and without the ball. You see a 1-0 soccer game and everyone goes crazy because of the movement. It\u2019s not the number of goals you score it\u2019s the motion. You get these great 1-on-1 soccer players and they\u2019re making their moves and going around defenders\u2014you don\u2019t see anything like that in water polo anymore.<\/p>\n

Movement is the key to making water polo a better sport for people to watch. It\u2019s hard enough to watch given that three quarters of the players\u2019 bodies are underwater. Fans can\u2019t see a lot of the action. But then we add insult to injury by stopping everybody instead of moving. People want to see movement. If we can get some motion into our sport it\u2019s going to really help a lot.<\/p>\n

The Junior Olympics\u2014the largest youth polo tournament in the world\u2014took place this month in Irvine, California. How does this and a relatively large pool of young athletes reflect where American polo will go?<\/strong><\/p>\n

How many of those kids realistically are going on to play for the national team? Any country can have a big tournament like that. You just invite a lot of teams. That\u2019s basically what we have done. That doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s great water polo. If you look at the overall number of players in water polo in the United States, it\u2019s actually rather low. If you look outside of California, it\u2019s really low.<\/p>\n

In this country water polo is competing with soccer, volleyball, football, basketball. And we\u2019re getting kids playing. But in the overall picture, it\u2019s still a very small sport in the United States. It’s a nice game, a fun game for young people to play but we\u2019re not producing the top athletes that can fit into the national system.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had success in the past when the international system was more a movement system. Back then we didn\u2019t have ODP. The high school and college system worked fine. And we won medals.<\/p>\n

And it can still be done.<\/p>\n

To read the interview with Dante Dettemanti in its entirety visit\u00a0Water Polo Planet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor Dante Dettamanti is a consistent\u2014if sometimes lonely\u2014voice for change within the international water polo establishment. 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