“Have you heard of the tunnels they dug under Oxy during World War II? I have seen them,” said Beto Vasquez, who graduated from Occidental College with a degree in history in 2012, is speaking to a fellow Oxy attendee.
\nThe reported tunnels, which the University City High Aquatics head coach is talking about, were dug on the Los Angeles campus in case of land invasion after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
\nWhat is the connection with spreading the gospel of water polo and swim for the Centurions? Maybe it\u2019s about Vasquez, who once considered pursuing a career in law, going places no one else has been. And taking others where they\u2019ve never been before.
\n“Like I told Evan Satre (his starting goalie at UCHS next fall): \u2018Don\u2019t tell me you want to be recruited by colleges, and then give me a half-baked workout. I can get you there, but you\u2019re going to have to give everything.\u2019”
\nThe former Bonita Vista two-meter guard has just completed his first year coaching at UCHS, and he\u2019s not looking to do things the way everybody else does.
\n“It\u2019s thinking out of the box,” says the 5-foot-10-inch fireplug. “In San Diego, the center of water polo is Del Mar and La Jolla.” He aims to expand that to University City, City Heights, and beyond.
\nAfter eight years of coaching club water polo with San Diego Shores and Doug Peabody, who also coaches the Bishop\u2019s school teams, this energetic 28-year-old wants a “new challenge”. “The coach at Patrick Henry reached out,” he reports. So he is working with athletes in the Poseidon Club program further inland.
\nBut he is also taking the water sport outside its usual cultural bounds. “I just recruited three guys from City Heights,” he says during an animated late breakfast the day after school let out. “One said, \u2018I don\u2019t swim that well.\u2019 I told him, \u2018Sign up and go for it.\u2019” That look in his eyes says he\u2019s taking people places.
\n“My leaders at UC in the fall: Brock Kammerer will be my best player hands-down. He is my strongest swimmer. His top recruiting right now is coming from Air Force Academy. He has no idea of what\u2019s ahead\u2014the commitment, the demands.” Kammerer is a 6-foot, 180-pounder whose brother Cole now plays at the University of Redlands.
\nAnother rising senior, Eric Orozco, “was my last year\u2019s MVP. He will be utility. In water polo, it\u2019s not like in baseball, where you aren\u2019t good enough to start. Utility means he will play several of the six positions.” Orozco measures 5-feet-9-inches, 165 pounds. “He is my fastest player and second-leading scorer.”
\nVasquez, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail as he attacks fried eggs and hash browns between assessments of his players and explanations of his “out of the box” philosophy, describes Satre, his future goalie, as “a wall”. “He\u2019s the biggest goalie in the county. He\u2019s 6-foot-5-inches with a 6-foot-8-inch wingspan. With that height, I\u2019m going to turn him into a NCAA prospect.”
\nWhen asked to compare him to Douglass Webster, the able goalie graduating from La Jolla High\u2019s talented team this year, the coach says, “He\u2019s going to be better.” Satre\u2019s advantage: “He\u2019s never been the starting goalie. He has always had someone in front of him. This is his year.” In other words, he wants it badly.
\nNext is Malachi Sanders, two-meter guard and primary defender, who plays the point on offense. “His job is to guard the biggest, meanest guy on defense. On offense, you\u2019re the facilitator, the quarterback. Not the primary scorer.”
\n“He is always, always, always the first one back on defense.”
\nFinally, out of his top five leaders, comes Cooper Lynch. “He\u2019s the two-meter set” (like the traditional center in basketball). “He\u2019s my big boy, 6-feet, 210 pounds. He\u2019s being recruited by Cal Baptist, which is no longer in the NAIA but NCAA Division 2. They\u2019ve moved all their sports up to Division 2.”
\nOf the quintet for UCHS\u2019s men\u2019s team for next fall, Vasquez says, “They\u2019re my top athletes. They all play year-round. They\u2019re all collegiate prospects.”
\nVasquez, who took the LSAT in preparation for entering law school after graduating from Occidental College five years ago, then quit his job a week later to commit himself to full-time coaching water polo (“which is what I love”) preaches a different collegial doctrine than “some older water polo coaches.”
\n“I\u2019m friends with everybody,” he claims. “Some of the older ones say, \u2018We\u2019re cool, but you\u2019re the coach for Bishop\u2019s,\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re the coach for La Jolla.\u2019 They say they can\u2019t be friends with opposing coaches because of the competitive factor.
\n“I\u2019m different. I\u2019m friends with Tom Atwell, the coach at La Jolla High. I\u2019m friends with Brett Ormsby, the coach at Cathedral Catholic High School. We need to be working together. That\u2019s the only way for us to move the sport of water polo ahead,” said Vasquez.
\nHe said he\u2019s actively recruiting middle school students in different areas, besides his chatting up of athletes from City Heights as well as students at University City. “I\u2019m fully bilingual, and I am using that to expand the sport,” says the former Bonita Vista Baron, saying he took a lifestyle cut from the chance to live in La Jolla or Fashion Valley to move back to Chula Vista.
\nIn the process, he says he gave an assistant a pay raise for next year, so that she can better keep and post team statistics on MaxPreps to make them more available to college recruiters who are tracking his players: “We\u2019re going to include goals, assists, but also saves” (in the case of his starting goalie Satre), he insists.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Have you heard of the tunnels they dug under Oxy during World War II? I have seen them,” said Beto Vasquez, who graduated from Occidental College with a degree in history in 2012, is speaking to a fellow Oxy attendee. The reported tunnels, which the University City High Aquatics head coach is talking about, were […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":266040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Beto Vasquez and UCHS Aquatics: Thinking \u2018out of the box\u2019","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}