NO GRUDGE HERE : Battle of Bay Opponents Work Together for Junior National Team : MIKE DiGIOVANNA, Times Staff Writer

For four years, Jeff Oeding and Steve Schroeder, members of the Corona del Mar High School water polo team, hated Cameron Thompson, who played for Newport Harbor High.

Oh, it was nothing really personal. Oeding and Schroeder hardly knew Thompson. They just disliked what he represented--the Newport Harbor water polo team, the 10 Southern Section championships the Sailors have won in the past 18 years, the dynasty.

It was the same for Thompson. He didn’t dislike Oeding or Schroeder personally. He just had an aversion to the Corona del Mar, which usually gave the Sailors their toughest competition and would occasionally snatch a championship away from them.

Throughout the four years of intense competition between two of California’s finest water polo programs, Thompson developed his own little stereotypes about Corona del Mar people.

He saw them as “bay-type” people, while those who attended Newport Harbor were more “beach-type” people.

In the world according to Thompson, bay people lived in wealthy homes that looked out toward Newport Bay but had no view of the beach. Bay people were a little more “preppy,” less rough around the edges.

His image of Corona del Mar students was that they were “Daddy’s little girls” or “Mommy’s little boys.” They lived in the perfect world.

Oeding and Schroeder also had their stereotypes about Newport Harbor people. They thought the water polo players were cocky and the people were snobby. While they saw themselves as a close-knit team of friends, they saw Newport Harbor’s team as a group of different personalities, all out to do their own thing, all with different goals.

Such was the way in the Battle of the Bay.

But during the past eight months, the three have set aside their differences to compete together on the U.S. junior national team, which departs Thursday to play in the Junior World Championships at Istanbul, Turkey.

There no longer seems to be any animosity among the three. All have graduated from high school and are heading to college in the fall--Thompson to the University of California, Oeding to Stanford and Schroeder to USC.

High school is history.

“We’d see each other all the time during school, but we never talked or got close to each other because we knew we had to play them,” said Oeding, Corona del Mar’s leading scorer last fall. “But we’re all friends now. We’re going to college and we’ll be playing with some of these guys. You have to put high school behind you.”

Added Thompson, who helped the Sailors defeat the Sea Kings, 14-9, for the 4-A championship last November: “I was never friends with Jeff or Steve. We always kept things on the business level. We didn’t like them because they were Corona and we had to win.

“But that seems kind of irrelevant now. It seems as if Corona is as good as Newport. We’ve grown out of the high school rivalry.”

Thompson, Oeding and Schroeder were three of about 100 players invited to try out for the junior national team in January. The trio made the official U.S. team roster of 30 players and then the traveling team of 13.

They’ll be starters when competition begins at Istanbul this weekend. Thompson and Schroeder alternate at the hole set position, while Oeding is a driver.

“Once we had made the team of 30 and began working out, it was a little uncomfortable playing with the Corona del Mar guys,” Thompson said. “But we all realized that we were there on a higher calling, that of all the players invited to try out, we were picked to represent the United States. Jeff and Steve are outstanding, unselfish players, and it’s a pleasure playing with them.”

The American team, coached by UCLA assistant Rich Corso and comprised of players 17 and under, advanced to the Junior World Championships by placing third among 12 teams in the Junior Pan-American games in April at Havanna, Cuba. The top four teams earned the right to play at Istanbul.

The team warmed up for the world championships by scrimmaging the Italian junior national team in Rome early this summer and then competing in the Wupertal (Germany) Invitational, where the Americans finished 1-5 against Hungary, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, France and Germany.

Schroeder and Oeding returned from Cuba and Europe with some clear-cut impressions.

“Cuba was a complete dictatorship, and it was weird to think people live like that,” Schroeder said. “It seemed as if everyone was just struggling to survive. I liked it for a couple of days, but it got old. Everyone seemed to be dull, and there weren’t many smiles. It seemed as if we were looked down upon as Americans.

“Europe was just the opposite. There were a lot of smiles and friendly people. Germany was my favorite part of the trip. It was very clean and the people were real nice.”

What stood out the most for Oeding was the emphasis that other nations placed on water polo and the enormous popularity of the sport outside of the United States.

“Water polo is a minor sport that doesn’t get much attention in the U.S., but it’s huge in other nations,” Oeding said. “We were in the newspapers every morning and there were big crowds for all the games in Cuba and Europe.”

Thompson didn’t develop any impressions of Europe. He didn’t go.

He was busy taking summer school classes at Laney College in Oakland to earn his high school diploma.

When Thompson missed three weeks of school to play in the Pan-Am games at Cuba, he fell behind in several classes. He eventually failed one, received incompletes in two others and was not allowed to graduate with his class. He made up five units at Laney to secure his high school diploma.

That finally put an end to a rocky high school career in which Thompson received marginal grades (he finished with a 2.7 grade-point average), ran into problems with water polo Coach Bill Barnett (he was kicked off the team for a period during the summer of his junior year) and became very alienated with the Newport style of living.

“I wasn’t the happiest kid in high school,” he said. “Going to school in Newport is not all it’s cracked up to be. You’re dealing with people who get Porsches on their 16th birthdays and think that’s the way the world is. It’s sad that people don’t realize that the world isn’t like that.”

Thompson said that living away from home and in the Berkeley area for two months this summer opened his eyes to the outside world and turned him off to the affluent life styles of Newport.

“Your parents have worked to get there, but you haven’t, so you live a plastic-like life because you get everything you want,” Thompson said. “I’m living in a nice house with a pool, but I’m glad I’m leaving. I wanted to get out of here. I went to Berkeley for two months and realized that the world is filled with interesting people.

“At Newport, I felt like I was in a box. The more I learned at Berkeley, the more I realized I didn’t know. The people I met were real honest and didn’t have many psychological hang-ups. When you live in Newport, it’s rare for someone to introduce himself and have a conversation.”

Thompson, with his new-found contentment, will be joining his brother, Colin, on the water polo team at Cal, but first, he has some business to take care of in Istanbul.

“I’ll be lacking some experience because I missed the Europe trip, but I’ve been working out with the team,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to help them out.”

That’s good news for Oeding and Schroeder.

“I don’t have any hard feelings for Newport people now,” Schroeder said. “This time, we’ll be on the same side of the pool.”