{"id":286291,"date":"2017-11-30T13:45:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T20:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=286291"},"modified":"2017-11-30T13:32:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T20:32:13","slug":"on-the-record-with-san-jose-states-bruce-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/on-the-record-with-san-jose-states-bruce-watson\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Record with San Jos\u00e9 State\u2019s Bruce Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Bruce Watson<\/strong>, head coach for the San\u00a0Jos\u00e9 State <\/a>men\u2019s water polo team, exudes the captivating \u201cCalifornia Cool\u201d that many associate with the country\u2019s most populous state, Tall, lanky and with an impressive tan that comes from decades as both surfer and water polo player, Watson\u2019s coaching prowess belies his laid-back appearance.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

With 638 wins in 31 years coaching at West Valley College,<\/a> a junior college team located in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is among the most successful coaches of his generation. Besides six California Community College state championships and eleven second place finishes, one high point of Watson’s tenure as Vikings\u2019 coach was an 11-7 victory in 2011 at the NorCal Tournament over Long Beach State, then a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A key member of a group of San Jose State alumni who revived Spartan men\u2019s water polo after a 34-year absence, Watson spoke with Swimming World<\/em> about California water polo in the Seventies, the\u00a0Golden Coast Conference’s<\/a> importance in shaking up the established order of the country\u2019s top programs\u2014Cal, Stanford, UCLA ans USC\u2014the remarkable success his team has achieved in three short years and what the future holds for NCAA men\u2019s varsity polo.<\/p>\n

Talk about your history with the sport.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I went to a local high school, played at a junior college out here\u2014De Anza\u2014and then a couple of years at San Jose State where both years we took second in NCAAs. I ended up playing club for a while and had a cup of coffee on the national team in the late seventies.<\/p>\n

Right out of college I coached high school [polo] for six years then went over to West Valley College where I coached them for close to 30 years. I was talked into taking over and helping start the San Jos\u00e9 State program.<\/p>\n

What were the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s like for water polo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was definitely different than it is now. Today we see the game spread across the country. If you were to tell me back then that it was going to be in all the places around the country now I wouldn\u2019t have believed you. It was pretty much Northern California and Southern California. We knew somebody played outside of California but we didn\u2019t see them very often.<\/p>\n

The club season was extensive back then. The club championships and outdoor nationals, and zone [competition] were much more competitive and popular. For some reason we\u2019ve gotten away from that.<\/p>\n

Water polo\u2019s gone through some strange things. There was a time during the early sixties when community colleges beat the four-year schools. That evolved and then NCAA finally kicked in, and the four-year schools became more competitive.<\/p>\n

Beside polo, you are an avid surfer. How are these two distinctive aquatic pursuits intertwined?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"watson-nov17\"<\/p>\n

In the 60\u2019s surfers were culturally anti-jock. There was a love of water and playing water polo for a lot of players, especially in Southern California. Beach lifeguards and surfers were involved with the ocean, and the kayakers and everyone else. It just made sense and it turns out that playing water polo made you better conditioned for whatever else you did in the water, whether it was diving or surfing.<\/p>\n

With surfing there is a sense of being part of a tribe. Water polo has its own clique as well. Somebody who\u2019s not in water polo doesn\u2019t get it. There is that similar feeling of being part of something that you think is cool.<\/p>\n

How did the relaunch of the San Jos\u00e9 State program come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a long-time coach in the area and, being an alumnus, it was frustrating to see the sport dropped in 1981. For years we tried to get it back but ran into political problems. The AD at State was never for it, there wasn\u2019t the money, etcetera, etcetera. Our same group about 20 years ago\u2014Bill Simpkins<\/strong> has been really important in helping\u2014got together with a couple of other people and got women\u2019s water polo added at San Jose State.<\/p>\n

Bill and I played in junior college together and he went on to Stanford, but he understands the importance of it on the NCAA and intercollegiate levels. And the area level; San Jose State turned out coaches\u2014I\u2019m a perfect example of this. We just kept going into ADs and asking: \u201cCan we get it back?!\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally we got the \u201cthumbs up.\u201d [<\/strong>Gene] <\/strong>Bleymaier<\/strong>,<\/strong> a very forward-thinking athletic director, added women\u2019s beach volleyball and said they would add men\u2019s water polo but we would have to fully fund it.<\/p>\n

We hit the ground running. Four or five of us were in a meeting and someone said: \u201cOkay, what\u2019s next?\u201d And one of the guys said: \u201cWho\u2019s gonna coach?\u201d Bill looked at me; it was news that he had been even thinking about me [as coach].<\/p>\n

We have tremendous support from Peter Uberroth<\/strong>, an alumnus; his grandson plays at Princeton for Louie Nicolao<\/strong>, who played for me briefly. I coached his sister. Louie\u2019s just a tremendous guy. Peter played for San Jos\u00e9 State in the 50\u2019s and went on run the L.A. Olympics [1984] and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Peter has been super, along with Bill.<\/p>\n

Being involved with the sport for so long what I basically did\u2014water polo is pretty much a family. Everybody understood the importance of adding a DI program back at the time. I can\u2019t remember when a previous program had been added. I can think of several that have been dropped but not added in the past 20, 30 years.<\/p>\n

Less than half of our donors are alumni. One reason is we haven\u2019t had [water polo] alumni since 1980, but all the other people who are involved in water polo, being a part of the family, they understood how important this was for the sport. This made our fundraising successful in getting people to commit to a five-year donation program.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll always be in donor mode but the better the team does, hopefully the easier that will be.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if you recall the pharmaceutical firm Barnes-Hinds; they were instrumental in inventing contact lens solutions. Greg Hind<\/strong> played for San Jose State. He passed away but his widow has been an important donor. She endowed a scholarship in her husband\u2019s name. Greg was a tremendous player, so we appreciate that.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the type of response we got and now we\u2019re just trying to put a good product in the water.<\/p>\n

It seems that the overall effort to revive Spartan water polo got an important boost with the development of Golden Coast Conference men\u2019s water polo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The timing was very fortuitous. We played in the Mountain Pacific [Sports Federation] the first couple of seasons. Because of NCAA regulations I couldn’t recruit for the first couple of years until my season was over at West Valley. We were not very experienced or skilled at the time.<\/p>\n

In the long run, spreading out NCAA opportunities to the East Coast and other conferences does nothing but help the sport. It encourages kids to play and to go to different [schools] and have the opportunity to go to NCAAs as compared with: \u201cWell, it\u2019s always going to be the Big Four. We never have a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing was pretty luck and those guys, when we started talking about it, it turned out pretty well. Hopefully the Pac-12 will recruit someone other than paying an East Coast team to fly out there. I don\u2019t know that they can get any of the other Pac-12 teams that don\u2019t have water polo to add the sport but it seems like that would be a goal for the future.<\/p>\n

And the conference is super competitive. They take turns beating each other. We lost to Long Beach [State] on a goal with 12 seconds left. We had a chance to beat Pepperdine down there. We beat Santa Barbara and then they beat us in the conference [tournament]. The parity is great and the competition is going to be great and exciting as well.<\/p>\n

San Jos\u00e9 State men\u2019s water polo is now in year three. Are you meeting the goals you set for the program when you first started out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The plan is to win and do as well as we can. I had a goal to be in the top-ten this season. People told me that\u2019s a stretch and that we were too young for it\u2014but we got close. With one more win at the end we could have made it. 11th is super\u2014we\u2019ll take that.<\/p>\n

It was frustrating; in my first two seasons [at San Jose State] I lost more games than in my last 15 at West Valley. But I also realize you can\u2019t win the derby on the donkey. You need to get athletes in there and then you need for them to develop.<\/p>\n

One of the difficult things of this season is that we were mostly a frosh and soph team. 253 of our 293 goals were scored by freshman and sophomores. So I\u2019m back at the JC again, but the good news is I\u2019m going to get them for four years.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got to win a few games for kids to notice us and want to come here; that\u2019s been helpful as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that San Jose State brought in an influx of young talent from all over the world. How has the sport in America evolved to include top international players?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had conversations with a couple of Pac-12 coaches [including] one who started his program a while ago. It took him eight years before he was able to get anyone off of the U.S. Junior National Team roster. And now they consistently win NCAAs.<\/p>\n

\"1TLX3330\"

Jacob Mercep set a San Jos\u00e9 State record with 93 goals and 119 points. Photo Courtesy: Terrell Lloyd<\/p><\/div>\n

You need to bring in the experienced international kids in order to compete early, and then they make your American kids better. And we all know that the international kids get to play 10 \u2013 11 months of the year compared to the three-month season here. they start [playing] much earlier which plays into the fact that they\u2019re much more developed at this level.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a no-brainer. You see it across all the teams; if you\u2019re looking for talent, and a lot of kids now\u2014because of globalization\u2014they want to come to the U.S. for their college degrees. Kids reach out to all the coaches and it\u2019s a matter of finding the right fit.<\/p>\n

It definitely has raised the skill and experience level of teams compared to the past. Back in the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s, unless you made the national team, intercollegiate players didn\u2019t face international teams or players very often.<\/p>\n

Is it possible that top American players are not getting the best opportunity to develop their skills?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fine line between wanting to compete and at the same time wanting to develop our national team, our junior national team and our presence internationally. Some four-year coaches will say that it\u2019s not their job to do that and there\u2019s a bit of friction between releasing their kids for the national team because they want them to play with [their college teams].<\/p>\n

Until there\u2019s another system for these kids to play in we\u2019re always going to be in a situation\u2014especially in water polo\u2014always looking for a miracle on ice when we send our national team [to international competitions]. It\u2019s always a hodgepodge of college kids, maybe a few older guys who played internationally. When we\u2019ve had our most success is when we\u2019ve had an influx of those older players who\u2019ve gone overseas.<\/p>\n

Developing the national team, there\u2019s a problem between the NCAA coaches and whoever is the national team coach. In the 60\u2019s they just sent the winning club team. And then they sent the winning club team with a couple of players from the second and third place club teams. Then they picked a college coach to pick the national team and he took most of his college players. It has evolved to where they try to get the best team, and getting the college guys to commit at that international level.<\/p>\n

We could have fielded a pretty strong team at the World Junior Championships in Serbia this summer but a lot of the kids were committed to getting ready for the NCAA season.<\/p>\n

\"Julian

Photo Courtesy: Julian Hawkins<\/p><\/div>\n

If you look at the bracket for the 2017 NCAA men\u2019s tournament, it looks remarkably similar to the bracket in 2016. What will it take to really shake up the Big Four?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a matter of time and of things evolving. The Big Four will always be the Big Four. They\u2019re always going to have their own TV channel; they currently have a lock on a lot of good players and some tremendous coaches.<\/p>\n

The East Coast game is going to do nothing but grow. It\u2019s hard to compete at that level with your Ivy League schools\u2014which is a similar situation that Stanford has\u2014but some of the other schools that are on the East Coast as they grow and get better and better coaching and better athletes they’ll break into that bubble. And sometime in the future we\u2019ll limit rosters so the big schools can\u2019t do the old Bear Bryant and Alabama thing: recruit everybody so they don\u2019t play against you.<\/p>\n

As the sport evolves, hopefully some other people will tap into their alumni and give them a run for their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor Bruce Watson, head coach for the San\u00a0Jos\u00e9 State men\u2019s water polo team, exudes the captivating \u201cCalifornia Cool\u201d that many associate with the country\u2019s most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":286294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[64877,63385,61199,64876,64874,21323,60192,61418,64875,64878],"class_list":["post-286291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-simpkins","tag-bruce-watson","tag-golden-coast-conference","tag-greg-hind","tag-jacob-mercep","tag-luis-nicolao","tag-michael-randazzo","tag-pepperdine-water-polo","tag-peter-uberroth","tag-west-valley-college-water-polo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nOn The Record with San Jos\u00e9 State\u2019s Bruce Watson - 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