Starting goalie on the county\u2019s No. 1 water polo team: This guy is big, strong, with a fingertip-to-fingertip reach exceeding his sprawling 6\u20194″ height.
\nImagine confronting him at the Bishop\u2019s goal, having to solve him to score. A tough assignment.
\nModest, only responding in answer to an interviewer\u2019s questions, George Hagestad allows as how his blocking must be pretty good. Prodded further, he says, “I\u2019ve been told” his passing, as well, is “pretty good”–“pretty accurate, I\u2019ve worked so long on it.”
\nIn the cocoon of the Doug Peabody-led water polo program, which goes year-around at San Diego Shores, Hagestad, a young man in a big man\u2019s 195-pound body, feels support and acceptance.
\n“Doug, really”-he calls his coach by his first name-“he\u2019s, by far, the most influential person in my water polo career,” Hagestad asserts. “and one of the most influential people in my life.”
\nThe tanned, beachy-looking 17-year-old junior calls his well-known coach a “leader, friend, and mentor.”
\nBesides helping him hone his skills in goal over the past several years to make him a top-flight player in the county, “There\u2019s so many things he says that relate to more than water polo,” his tutee relates.
\n“He really steered me the right direction. Responsibility. Self-responsibility: taking ownership of things I\u2019ve done wrong, and being humble for the things I\u2019ve done right.”
\nHagestad, the youngest of four siblings, the oldest of whom played golf at USC and recently qualified for the 2017 Masters tournament at Augusta, Georgia, sits with his guest in shade on benches just off the sunny grass area in the middle of the private school campus. It\u2019s an idyllic setting to talk about the fun of competitive prep sports, but also about things that matter and people in our lives who accompany us there.
\nGeorge, whose parents are John and Mary, has just experienced the departure of his close older brother, Richard, 19, moving out of the house to attend USC as well and play football there as a freshman. “For several weeks (after he left), I had a hard time,” confesses the student athlete. “For 17 years we did everything together.” His older siblings are eight and six years older, but with Richard, the bond is super close.
\n“The drives from home to school and the talks were always really special,” he shares. You can see and feel the warmth and closeness that are there. The two brothers still keep close contact via electronics, the one helping lead the CIF San Diego Section\u2019s top polo team, the other at the bottom of the Trojan football heap trying to carve out a role for himself.
\nThoughts of familial ties are sweet, of vacations spent at Hagestad\u2019s cousin\u2019s ranch in Baja, an hour from La Paz, on the coast. “It\u2019s where a lot of my family memories are,” the youngest says. “It was just so fun.”
\nGeorge also surfs, even with his bigger 6\u20194″ frame using a short board, but one a little bigger and heavier–“buoyant”–than the standard. The bigger size lends some lift to keep the board up while Hagestad is out in the water.
\nWater polo teams are renowned for spending early-morning workouts at 6 a.m. before school just doing swimming to build strength and endurance for the latter parts of games. There is an unspoken fraternity that erects around teammates to commit to the demanding level of physical work required for the long haul of individual games and the season.
\nIn opposing a shooter, Hagestad, in goal, must tread water (there is no opportunity to push off the floor or the sides of the pool) and anticipate when the offensive player is going to make his attempt. Meanwhile, the shooter is also keeping afloat, treading, and trying to time his shot, depending on what he sees the goalie do.
\nWhat are you watching, as goalkeeper? “I\u2019m looking at his eyes, his body,” says the veteran player. “Either he is going to shoot or pass.” This whole time, he has to conserve his energy and gather it to lunge upward if his opponent fires. Hagestad\u2019s arms have to go out, extended, if needed. Or, in the case of a tricky skip shot, guard that the ball doesn\u2019t bounce under his outstretched arm.
\nIn a way, it\u2019s a delicate dance between shooter and goalie. On the other hand, the attempted shot and opposing thrust to block it are instances of violence and power, tons of energy exerted.
\nIn six hours, Hagestad will do this dance many times against Cathedral Catholic, another highly-ranked team. “It should be a tough game,” the junior says. “It\u2019s at Cathedral, and it\u2019s their Senior Night. The first time we played them, we beat them by one. Dennis Blyashov is a good player. I played with him last summer on Doug\u2019s team.”
\nThe fraternity includes players everyone is familiar with, from playing against but also from playing alongside on the same club team.
\nWhen his team is on defense, Hagestad is the quarterback who can see the whole offense in front of him. On offense, the goalie would seem to be out of the action, far away at the other end of the pool. But, not having to be alert to defend the goal at the moment, he can see things his teammates might not see: “I\u2019m doing a lot of watching,” he says, “If I see somebody open and the (other) person doesn\u2019t see them, I\u2019ll tell them.” Is he known as a vocal goalie? Medium, he says.
\nIn a final startling declaration, Hagestad says, “All the water polo and everything in my life goes back to my mom. She is pretty much the reason I\u2019m in water polo and in school here. She has spent thousands of hours” helping him and supporting him.
\nWhat is her special gift? “She\u2019s really good with people, and that\u2019s a real big benefit to me.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starting goalie on the county\u2019s No. 1 water polo team: This guy is big, strong, with a fingertip-to-fingertip reach exceeding his sprawling 6\u20194″ height. Imagine confronting him at the Bishop\u2019s goal, having to solve him to score. A tough assignment. Modest, only responding in answer to an interviewer\u2019s questions, George Hagestad allows as how his […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":271365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Bishop\u2019s water polo goalie a born leader","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271364","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=271364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}