{"id":352217,"date":"2019-02-17T16:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T23:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=352217"},"modified":"2019-03-19T15:34:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T22:34:23","slug":"on-the-deck-with-jack-horton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/on-the-deck-with-jack-horton\/","title":{"rendered":"On Deck With Jack Horton, Referee, Coach, Photographer and Life-Long Polo Enthusiast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Swimming World is down in Coral Springs, Florida for the annual\u00a0South Florida International Tournament<\/a>. Offered by\u00a0Michael Goldenberg<\/strong>,\u00a0his daughter\u00a0Elina <\/strong>and extensive coaching staff from\u00a0the South Florida Water Polo Club<\/a>, this annual age group tournament\u2014started in 2003 by Istvan Csendes<\/strong>,\u00a0Jim Shoemaker<\/strong> and Bruce Wigo<\/strong>\u2014draws teams from all over the East Coast as well as from the Bahamas, Calgary, Chicago, Peru, Puerto Rico, Rome and other locations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Growth of\u00a0Florida water polo has been eagerly anticipated, but only recently<\/a> are decades of effort being recognized. Perhaps the most obvious indicator of the sport’s success in the Sunshine State is the unparalleled achievements of Rio Olympian and 2017 Cutino Award winner<\/a> Ashleigh Johnson<\/strong>, a 2012 graduate of\u00a0Miami’s Ramson Everglades High School.<\/p>\n

But, as Jack Horton<\/strong> attests, there’s more to Florida polo than Ms. Johnson, impressive as her accomplishments have been.<\/p>\n

A life-long Floridian who attended Florida State and University of Central Florida (UCF), Horton is a former high school water polo coach at Winter Park High School and Lake Brantley High School in the Orlando area. A FINA-rated referee representing the U.S.\u2014now retired\u2014he is currently a member of the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s Technical Committee as well as a member of the NCAA Water Polo’s National Evaluators Group. He’s also an amateur photographer with a roving eye focused on natural detail.<\/p>\n

\"horton-ball-feb19\"Earlier this week, Horton spoke with Swimming World<\/em> about his career in polo, including his remarkable success in Florida high school polo, the particular demands of career as a referee and why it’s been difficult for polo to catch on in an environment that at first glance seems ideally suited for the sport.<\/p>\n

– How did you get involved with Florida polo?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I was born and raised in Central Florida. I was a competitive, year-round swimmer, and swam twice a day. When I got to Florida State University I started playing club water polo. I was tired of playing wall tag.<\/p>\n

I grew up playing soccer and other ball sports, so water polo was just a ball sport where I could use my swimming abilities. After I graduated and got back home I continued playing club polo in the Orlando area. From there, I got into officiating\u2014I was lucky and advanced pretty quickly. A couple of times I was in the right place at the right time with the right people watching, which helped.<\/p>\n

A lot of referees and coaches for the United States, people I consider great water polo people – they really helped me along the way\u2014including\u00a0Andy Takata<\/strong>, Brett Bernard<\/strong>, Bob Lee<\/strong>, Bob Corb<\/strong>, Tom Hermstead<\/strong>, Don Holbrook<\/strong>, John Montrella<\/strong>, Sandy Nitta<\/strong>, Garry Robinett<\/strong>\u00a0and Dave Albertstein<\/strong>. There\u2019s so many more. They were all pivotal in my development. I knew I could never referee like any one of them, but I took bits and pieces of how they referee and used that.<\/p>\n

I worked my way up officiating collegiately on the East Coast. I became a FINA referee for the United States and at the same time started coaching high school water polo. I started boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams at Winter Park High School where I coached for four years. I had four teams win the state championship.<\/p>\n

– You started both Winter Park and Lake Brantley programs from scratch and brought them to multiple state championships.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I was at Winter Park for four years and then I decided to switch over to Lake Brantley High School and start all over again. Literally, the first practice was: This is a ball and don\u2019t bounce it on the pool deck because it will flatten out and ruin the ball\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

\"horton-egret-feb19\"

An egret, native to Florida<\/p><\/div>\n

The first time we went down to Miami for the State Championships we played Miami Beach [in 1991] in the Championship game. I told my team that we would have to win by two or three goals and then it would be a one goal game. I wanted them to be mentally prepared if things didn\u2019t go their way. We won 11-10. I had a parent who had one of the original cell phones\u2014they were like bricks back then\u2014we had to call the Florida Highway Patrol to get off the pool deck after we\u2019d won.<\/p>\n

[The other team] wasn\u2019t real happy that someone from outside Southern Florida had won the state title. \u00a0After that first State Title I knew what I was doing at practice was working, as I had 4 starters that had no competitive swimming background.<\/p>\n

I coached at Lake Brantley for six years and had five teams win state championships.<\/p>\n

– Was this because you had a core of great swimmers or did you discover athletes who could quickly master the intricacies of polo?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It was a combination of things. Through officiating, I got to see some top-level teams\u2014like Commerce (in Los Angeles). I\u2019ll never forget these little girls from LA getting in the pool and just kicking butt.<\/p>\n

They were very smart and deliberate in their actions, and I would study that. That was the basis for teaching my teams how to play individual and team defense. Also, being around collegiate teams you get to see lots of strategies, you see things they do, you put that to paper and learn it.<\/p>\n

Also, when traveling with teams you have opportunities to learn a lot of strategies and techniques. That helped me a lot too.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to break the game down into little pieces and then work on those little pieces relentlessly. We couldn\u2019t be perfect\u2014but we could get really close to perfect in all those little pieces, without getting too complicated. My focus was to just do the simple stuff really well. We also did not scrimmage often at all, it just seemed like a way for the players to re-enforce bad habits.<\/p>\n

At Winter Park I had football players who would come out and wanted to play. I had swimmers and non-swimmers. At Brantley I had a couple of state champions [in swimming] that sat on the bench. They were part of the second wave behind the starters.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to make it very clear to the team members that I was going to approach practices with 100% effort. I figured if I was putting everything I had into practice that I could then ask [my players] to put everything they had into it. That seemed to work as well for me.<\/p>\n

I also talked about life lessons with them, because things happen in games that aren\u2019t fair or don\u2019t seem to be right. The same types of things happen in life\u2014how do you handle that and how do you move forward? I needed them to believe in me and the best way for me to have that happen was to show how much I believed in them.<\/p>\n

– You\u2019re coaching and refereeing and traveling nationally and internationally. You must have been busy!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yes, I was, I didn\u2019t have much of a life outside of teaching and water polo. It was very rewarding in the connections you make with young people.<\/p>\n

In the fall and summer I would be traveling a lot for water polo. During the summer I would be away from home for weeks at a time. It\u2019s what I did and I wouldn\u2019t trade those times for anything.<\/p>\n

In the spring I had water polo practices; I\u2019d run separate practices because I learned in my first year [of coaching] that I couldn\u2019t treat the girls like I treat the guys. In my mind, they\u2019re very different types of players so you treat them that way.<\/p>\n

We ended up going six days a week, two, 2-hour blocks. Some of our home games at Lake Brantley, we\u2019d have practice the day of games. It was a matter of things we want to work on and we may or may not get to work on them in the game.<\/p>\n

I convinced my players that we play for each other; the goals I had for them were to play better as an individual at the end of the season than at the beginning, and better as a team at the end of the season than at the beginning. We never talked about\u2014and the players knew not to talk about it in front of me\u2014winning certain games or making it to state. That was not something to be discussed.<\/p>\n

\"horton-bridge-feb19\"<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t believe in setting goals like winning this or winning that.<\/p>\n

– But you and your players did get a great deal of satisfaction from achieving goals like winning state titles.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of course! And at times I would have them stop, look around and take a moment to soak it all in. I would tell them that if we play our best and don\u2019t win\u2014what matters is that we played our best. Hats off to the other guys if they played better and beat us.<\/p>\n

When you win big events (like a State Championship), it’s a tremendous bond for the players that they have for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

It was a great run\u2014very satisfying and of course time consuming. I probably got burned out at the end<\/p>\n

Now I evaluate and train officials at the collegiate level and somewhat at the high school level here locally. It\u2019s nice to be able to give back; I think of all those guys who helped me along the way\u2014who would pull me aside and say: Think about this or try this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to be able to pass that stuff along. I can\u2019t emphasize enough how many people were so helpful in my career\u2014and so willing to share what made them good, and without being threatened. Some people don\u2019t want to share anything because they don\u2019t want to give any secrets away.<\/p>\n

– In describing how hard it is to officiate water polo, you mention a quote: “What goes on above the water is the referee\u2019s business and what goes on under the water is the players business.”<\/strong> How do you interpret what is unseen?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can tell by body movement, you can tell by a player who rolls on their back, looks directly at an opponent that\u2019s swimming up on him\u2014let\u2019s say they\u2019re on a counter-attack\u2014you keep swimming so why would you roll on your back? You see them make eye contact\u2014then you see the knee come out of the water, you don\u2019t see their foot. And then you see the other player react. You can be certain that was a kick, and the rules don\u2019t care if there was contact or what impact that foul will have on that game or that player, or that team\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of grabbing and holding in water polo. It\u2019s all done down low; if you can\u2019t see it you can\u2019t see it. \u00a0You can\u2019t start making things up as a referee.<\/p>\n

I think we’re getting better in the women\u2019s game but it\u2019s very hard because their uniform is so much bigger than the guys, and there\u2019s so many more entry points for which to grab and secure a firm hold and thereby control that opponent. So, you look for unnatural movement [in a way] that would be very difficult for a player to move their bodies\u2026 unassisted, on their own. This is by no means foolproof but it can be very helpful for the referee.<\/p>\n

– Sometimes you have to discern what might be an Oscar-quality acting performance\u2026!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Some people are more vocal than others. Some react in a way that you would not think to be normal\u2014and yet that\u2019s how they react. A referee needs to be careful about deciding what they think something is\u2014they really have to go by what they actually see.<\/p>\n

As referees get better they learn where to look. A ball is shot, it\u2019s a miss, now the game is going the other way\u2014then two players are stationary face-to-face. One referee should be advancing [with the play]; the other one\u2014in my mind\u2014needs to be very much aware of those two. If they\u2019re not, they\u2019re messing up because things might escalate.<\/p>\n

\"horton-owl-feb19\"<\/p>\n

You have the players who are smart about this who are watching the referee. If the referee\u2019s obviously looking at them, he\u2019s just de-escalated the situation, which is very important. If something happens, then hopefully the referee sees who did what\u2014quite often, if they\u2019re squaring up, there are two guilty parties.<\/p>\n

– I imagine you are closely studying the various new rules that FINA recently ratified for application in tournaments starting next month.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mark Koganov<\/strong>, who is Vice President of FINA\u2019s Technical Water Polo Committee, I know him well. In the past I\u2019ve had conversations about ideas I had regarding how to have less whistles\u2014and to make the game easier for non-purists to watch. This men\u2019s NCAA season we instituted a more thorough application of the rules as written, calling the rules as written which results in calling the game tighter. I think the results so far (when applied properly) have been very favorable.<\/p>\n

I do like it; I think it\u2019s good evolution of the game. Too much physicality will eventually be the end of water polo. You have to let people swim. I like man-ups; all the things you can do during man-up and man-down situations, and the different defenses\u2014playing man-to-man here and playing a zone over there\u2026 but, to the general spectator, it\u2019s another boring six-on-five.<\/p>\n

I like the FINA rule that\u2014outside of a certain distance\u2014I get a minor foul. It was changed to; you can shoot but you have to shoot right away. I wondered: If we want to punish the defense, why not put in a rule that they can shoot whenever they want.<\/p>\n

No, [the player] had to shoot right away. Couldn\u2019t hesitate, couldn\u2019t fake\u2014and the defender could defend. Now that player can move around and fake the ball before they shoot. That will make the outside foul a more painful experience for the team on defense and lessen the number of whistles.<\/p>\n

This may cause defenders to decide they don\u2019t want to commit an outside foul; it may mean more outside shots coming in, off of fakes, which is very exciting to the average fan. Faking the goalie from six meters is pretty exciting. it\u2019s also probably going to open up the center forward position and make it harder for teams to continue doing what they have for a long time, which is to foul and then drop and [double the] center forward.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve tightened up the area inside [5 meters], with penalties whistled more, which I think is good as well. Again, for the average fan it\u2019s like a penalty kick in soccer: it\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n

– What about referees \u201cswallowing their whistles\u201d with a minute left in the game and not calling a five-meter penalty?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This comes up often\u2014it came up this past weekend at a women\u2019s tournament at Bucknell. A referee made a comment: I didn\u2019t want to do that because [that call] could be a deciding thing. I pretty adamantly said: There\u2019s two people who decided that; the player who caused the foul and\u2014by proxy\u2014her coach.<\/p>\n

\"horton-eagle-feb19\"If there\u2019s a penalty called with two seconds left, and in the first five minutes of the game you would have called that penalty\u2014then you have to call it with five seconds left in a tie game. You must detach yourself from that situation; you, the referee, didn\u2019t do this. You\u2019re merely doing your job\u2014what you\u2019re being paid to do. That is: responding to the players\u2019 actions according to the rules.<\/p>\n

You see it in all sports where you have referees who can pass the rules test; in your average game, they\u2019re beautiful! Then, things get tight, and they tighten up too.<\/p>\n

I tell the referees you can\u2019t show emotion. Don\u2019t have nervous laughter before a big game\u2014it just doesn\u2019t look good!<\/p>\n

My girlfriend, Dr. Shawna Resnick<\/strong>, is a PhD who teaches psychology. I told her about this\u2014that this is something all sports have\u2014where [the referee] swallows their whistle at crucial moments, however you want to say it.<\/p>\n

She looked up a bunch of stuff, shared it with me, and it all made sense. The referee wants to belong to the group. And there\u2019s this sense of belonging that humans have. Decisions made at a crucial time [means] they risk not belonging.<\/p>\n

When I was officiating, I found that you do the best you can [and] the score does not matter. If it\u2019s 20-1 you referee the same as if it\u2019s a much closer score. if someone wants to blame anyone for the lopsided score, well that\u2019s easy: the team that\u2019s losing? It\u2019s their coach and how they prepare their athletes for the games.<\/p>\n

That player caused [the action] and you\u2019re merely responding to it as the rules permit. It\u2019s asking a lot and I know some people just can\u2019t do it, but the referees must try to be consistent from the very start of the game to the very end of the game, no exceptions\u2014and that\u2019s true in all sports officiating.<\/p>\n

– How is it a sport like football is so dominant in Florida but water polo\u2014with a great tradition of swimming success\u2014struggles to find traction among the state\u2019s sports?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

That\u2019s easy; for water polo you need a pool and pools are expensive. Take lacrosse. For lacrosse, you need a patch of dirt, and guys get to run around and beat on each other with sticks. When I first saw lacrosse at Winter Park High School\u2014and they were just starting in Florida\u2014I thought it would take off. It\u2019s the same season as water polo; and I knew they\u2019re were going to draw some of my athletes and this sport is going to grow<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy; for lacrosse, you need a field. For water polo, you need a pool.<\/p>\n

– There are pools all over Florida!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

But it\u2019s not like California, where you have a large population concentrated close together and transportation highways all over. You can get from here to there relatively easily. And a lot of high schools have deep-water pools; far more than Florida High Schools.<\/p>\n

This is the problem; if you don\u2019t have a pool on campus then you have to rent the time, which is expensive. And, the most efficient thing to do with a pool is: swim team!<\/p>\n

Not a lot of high schools have pools; that\u2019s one thing when you first go to California, all the games are at high schools with these beautiful pools.<\/p>\n

\"horton-dunes-feb19\"[In Florida] the issue is the number of pools. That\u2019s something that South Florida has over Central Florida; they\u2019ve got more pools and they\u2019ve got a larger population close together. You look at NorCal and SoCal and you look at San Diego; a lot of people and a lot of pools.<\/p>\n

The other thing that helped the big colleges out there is they have major football teams. That\u2019s a big driver of revenue. My mother went to USC\u2014I grew up watching Trojan games\u2014and it\u2019s a huge football program. It likely supports a lot of other sports. I don’t know exactly [how] but I\u2019m sure they get a lot of TV money.<\/p>\n

My parents met at Stanford\u2014they both graduated [from there]. They\u2019ve got a great football team, which makes things easier than some of the schools out East where they have football but it\u2019s not nearly as big.<\/p>\n

– In that analogy, you\u2019ve got four major college football programs\u2014Florida, Florida State, Miami, UCF\u2014that could sustain varsity polo. But they don\u2019t\u2026.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Okay, let\u2019s take Florida State, [part of the] ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference]. I don\u2019t think Florida State, or Clemson, or NC State are going to pick up the sport unless the entire conference does. And then you have the Title IX, where there\u2019s a push for equal numbers as far as scholarships and to maintain that balance.<\/p>\n

It seems that many college athletic programs are content with the sports they offer and adding more is something that just doesn\u2019t happen that often.<\/p>\n

– As I understand it, USA Water Polo is committed to growing the sport in your state. What will that take?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I think the biggest need is coaching material aimed at the HS and\/or age group coach who knows nothing about water polo. Quality material made available for free so that they can teach the skills and strategies needed to be successful. The Collegiate Water Polo Association<\/a> is making great strides in this area.<\/p>\n

– But Florida is now producing impact players like Ashleigh Johnson. How does that change the perception of polo in your state?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What an amazing athlete! Do you know what she did in the 50 Free?! [Set state record at 23.46; since broken by Isabel Ivey<\/strong> of Oak Hall 22.51]. And the program that they have at Ransom Everglades\u00a0 is just incredible. It\u2019s in a private school and they\u2019ve got a great pool. It\u2019s a great program.<\/p>\n

Local kid makes good and gets Olympic gold medal\u2014in a sport you\u2019ve never heard of!<\/p>\n

\"December

Ashleigh Johnson. Photo Courtesy: Catharyn Hayne<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a lot of contact, and girls\u2014a lot of them like the contact. And you can\u2019t fall down and get hurt. And you\u2019re playing in the water with a ball. Who growing up didn\u2019t throw a ball around in a pool somewhere and then get kicked out!?<\/p>\n

Ashley [created] a big awareness of the sport down [in South Florida] and that helped greatly.<\/p>\n

– As you look back on your career in polo, what is it that you\u2019re most inspired by?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It was really neat with both programs to introduce kids to a sport that they probably never even heard of, and then to take them to a really high level. And for them to be successful.<\/p>\n

The lesson that hard work pays off, and working as a team pays off\u2014if you\u2019re working together you can achieve so much\u2014and we would practice specific situations over and over and over and over to get it as close to perfect as we could.<\/p>\n

Showing up and being organized and ready\u2014and then being real with my players. I know many of them still to this day; one was over at my house last night. Coaching is a neat classroom where everyone wants to work really hard.<\/p>\n

Especially when you\u2019re successful, that feeds into you are doing something unique and you are doing it very well.<\/p>\n

Then the officiating, like I said earlier I was very fortunate that so many people were very helpful towards me in so many ways. That aspect of people handing down knowledge to you, and then getting the opportunity to hand down that same knowledge (and some of your own) to others is a very important thing to me. I like to help others so that they don\u2019t have to reinvent the wheel.<\/p>\n

When I reflect on my life, I do have some regrets, but water polo is not one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Swimming World is down in Coral Springs, Florida for the annual\u00a0South Florida International Tournament. Offered by\u00a0Michael Goldenberg,\u00a0his daughter\u00a0Elina and extensive coaching staff from\u00a0the South Florida Water Polo Club,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":352377,"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":[3,1],"tags":[28670,39795,65028,74207,74206,1247,68448,3028,72333,42886,74212,74209,74219,74222,74211,74443,74220,74444,74210,74224,62486,74221,74218,1249,74223,74208,20349],"class_list":["post-352217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-andy-takata","tag-ashleigh-johnson","tag-bob-corb","tag-bob-lee","tag-brett-bernard","tag-bruce-wigo","tag-catharyn-hayne","tag-collegiate-water-polo-association","tag-commerce-water-polo","tag-cwpa","tag-dave-albertstein","tag-don-holbrook","tag-dr-shawna-resnick","tag-elina-goldenberg","tag-garry-robinett","tag-istvan-csendes","tag-jack-horton","tag-james-shomaker","tag-john-montrella","tag-lake-brantley-high-school","tag-mark-koganov","tag-michael-goldenberg","tag-ramson-everglades","tag-sandy-nitta","tag-south-florida-water-polo-club","tag-tom-hermstead","tag-winter-park-high-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nOn Deck With Jack Horton, Referee, Coach, Photographer and Life-Long Polo Enthusiast - 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