Dante Dettamanti had a recipe for making championship water polo teams. He studied exercise physiology so he could understand how to get the most from his players. As a graduate assistant, he watched how his mentor, Bob Horn, led UCLA to a national title in 1969. And he focused on the piece of the game he thought was most important: speed.
Seven times, Dettamanti’s recipe had helped his teams win the grand prize—a national championship. On December 2, the eve of his retirement, the mix came together one final time when Stanford beat UCLA, 8-5, for the NCAA title. His players celebrated by dunking the 59-year-old coach in the pool at Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center. “In the last two minutes, I really felt that we were going to take the game and I started taking my shoes and jacket off,” Dettamanti says. “I learned my lesson a couple years ago when I almost sank.”
A championship was the goal all season long, players said, but not because it would be a fitting tribute to Dettamanti. “He was careful all year to not make it about it being his last season,” says junior goalkeeper Nick Ellis, who had eight saves in the match. “We wanted to win this for ourselves.”
Rated No. 1 at the start of the season, Stanford never slipped in the rankings. Five early games were canceled after the events of September 11, so the Cardinal went nearly untested into away matches against powerhouses UCLA and USC. When Stanford managed solid wins against both, Dettamanti says, “that was my first indication that we were going to have something special this year.”
The Cardinal swam through the next 18 games undefeated, losing only its final regular-season match —the November 17 Big Splash against Cal. The loss “did us a lot of good,” Dettamanti says. “It made the guys say, ‘Hey, people aren’t just going to roll over for us because we are No. 1.’ They started listening to the coach again.”
That lesson proved especially valuable in the NCAA finals. Before a sold-out crowd of 2,226 fans huddled in the wind, Stanford jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first period, then extended its lead to 5-1 during the second. UCLA drew closer when Alfonso Tucay broke free from his defender and scored, cutting the Stanford margin to 5-2. A minute later, junior Brian Darrow answered with a Stanford goal, giving the Cardinal a seemingly insurmountable 6-2 lead.
But the Bruins scored twice more in the third period, winning back the momentum. Only when senior Onno Koelman scored off a lob pass from superstar teammate Tony Azevedo, bringing the score to 7-4, did Dettamanti’s dunking seem assured.
The win was a sweet way to leave a sweet gig. Dettamanti spent the last 25 years beside a brilliant teal pool, guiding some of the country’s best athletes. He ended his career with 666 wins—second-best all-time—and eight national titles, tied for the greatest number in NCAA history with Cal’s Pete Cutino. Dettamanti even has fond memories of his only losing season, in 1983. That year’s squad of mostly freshmen went on to win national titles in both 1985 and 1986.
One of this year’s redshirt freshmen—Azevedo—may be even more memorable. The so-called “Michael Jordan of water polo” played in the Olympics as a high schooler, led the U.S. team in scoring at the world championships this year, scored at least two goals in each game he played at Stanford this season and was the MVP of the NCAA championship.
But even though Azevedo has three remaining years of college eligibility—and NCAA all-tournament team selections Ellis, Jeff Nesmith and Peter Hudnut still have senior seasons to play—Dettamanti is ready to leave water polo behind. After 46 years as a player and coach, he wants the freedom to travel around the country in an RV with his girlfriend, Mary Jo Taylor, to ski at Lake Tahoe on weekdays and to attend evening jazz concerts. John Vargas, who led one of the nation’s top prep programs at Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, Calif., will succeed him.
Meanwhile, Dettamanti plans to apply his recipe to another venture: winemaking. He already grows grapes—chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir—on a couple of acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains but, until now, has contracted for the wine production. In preparation for taking over, Dettamanti is studying wine chemistry at UC-Davis and finding a mentor in a more experienced vintner. If his success in the pool is any indication, the products of Dettamanti Vineyards will be worth a taste.
