Splish, Splash, Splat : Prep Water Polo Goalies Frequently Save Face by Taking It Right on the Nose

Water polo goalies are moody fellows, for they have some heavy, fast things to consider.

That funny yellow rubber ball, heavier and harder than a volleyball and so strangely released by the shooter, is coming at them, quickly . Eventually there will be an unpleasant collision among the saves, and the goalie has half a game in still water to think about it.

Goalies, see, take it in the face. A lot. Some relish it, some fear it, some use it as a motivational tool--but for good or not, the goalie is going to get hit a few times straight on the nose.

Which is not to say that getting drilled in the face is all there is to tending the goal. “If it (were),” said Mike Hargett, the goalie for Manhattan Beach Mira Costa high school, “it would be cake.”

Hargett, a senior, looks like the kind of guy who would enjoy making a few saves with his teeth. His blonde hair is fashioned into a long Mohawk, the sides shaved completely bald. A stainless steel safety pin is stuck through his left earlobe.

“What pumps me up? When you just make a great save, shut down the other team after they’ve worked,” Hargett said. He then paused, and smiled. “Or maybe getting hit in the face. That really gets me mad, pumped.”

Adam Griffin, a sophomore goalie at Mira Costa, nodded at the assessment. Griffin is 6-4, wears horned-rimmed glasses, looks real studious and calm. He talks another way.

“Pain is such a rush ,” Griffin said jokingly. “I mean, even if it hits you in the face, you stopped it . . . so you take it in the face. They don’t want to hit you--they want to score. If they went out there and tried to hit you in the face every time? It would be a lot easier.”

Mike Nolan remembers when protecting the goal was a much more painful experience. Nolan, now the co-coach at Mira Costa, played goalie at the national level back when those funny balls were made of cowhide.

“I remember playing in an trial game, at the national level, with the old leather balls,” he said. “By the third quarter, it seemed like the ball weighed forty or fifty pounds. Wham! Right into your arm.”

Nolan also remembers the old caps, minus the ear guards. “See, before these ear guards were here, you’d take one off the bar, straight into the ear,” he said. “Man, that hurt. There were a lot of bursted ear drums.”

So goalie, not the most desirable of positions, draws an unusual lot. It is difficult to play well, and requires special leg training. At the prep level, high school goalies aren’t so much made as they happen.

“I’m definitely not going to make someone play the position that doesn’t want to,” Long Beach Millikan Coach Bruce Brown said. “Usually, you find someone who is maybe interested in playing, and then introduce it to them.

“You need someone that likes to be a leader. That’s the best goalie.”

Eric Coolbaugh, a senior who thoughtfully talked about playing goalie after Millikan’s 7-3 loss to University High of Irvine in the second round of the Southern Section playoffs, agreed with Brown.

“It was a leadership point,” Coolbaugh said. “I call plays, I direct the defense.

“What’s great is when you make a really high block, everything stops and goes the other way, because you touched the ball.”

Goalies also play by their own rules. Touch that goalie the wrong way, offense man, and you go to the corner. For a 45-second kick-out, as opposed to a complete ejection, which you get if you hammer that goalie like you would, say, another field player.

“Advantages?” Hargett smiled. “You steal the ball, and then you hold it up like a carrot in front of the guy, over his head . . . and he can’t do anything about it. It’s great!”

Besides being unable to guard the goalie with any real zeal, offensive players are also subject to Goalie Wrath--a kick, splash, punch or maybe all three from the goalie as he covers his territory.

“The refs will never call an offensive (foul) on a goalie, so I can get away with anything,” Coolbaugh said. “I like to use my elbows.”

Hargett said: “You can’t just be sitting around in there. We had a goalie last year that was psychotic, beating on people and stuff. During drills, we just used to see how many people we could jump on. I guess he was kind of a nut, but he intimidated other players.”

Goalies possess a certain common quality, Hargett, Griffin and Coolbaugh all said, though they didn’t really agree what it was.

“Most of them (high school goalies) are a quiet type,” Coolbaugh said. “I do in fact play a different game. I tell them (the field players) that.”

Griffin: “Aggressive and confident, in the pool. And tall.”

Hargett, who is 5-10: “You don’t have to be tall, I don’t think. I’m not tall. You have to be aggressive, and smart.”

The goalie is the last guy to see the ball zip by. Indeed, he is faked-out and scored upon and takes the blame, though many times undeservingly.

“Most the time, it’s not the goalie’s fault (when they score),” Brown said. “It’s a defensive breakdown, leaving a man open.

“They take a lot of heat. They pride themselves on blocking a shot, one-on-nobody. That’s not easy.”

So when things go sour, Griffin said, the team will sometimes turn on the goalie. “You don’t get as much credit as the field players,” Griffin said.

“OK, you stop a shot and they congratulate you, but its not like when a certain guy scores a goal and everybody goes crazy. You just don’t get the recognition like the other players. And you catch flack from the other players when the ball goes in your goal.”

Coolbaugh said: “We (goalies) don’t like to take crap from people. Cocky, but with finesse.”

According to Griffin, playing goalie, like pain, is a rush--half a game of intense pressure, and half of calm, while the other goalie gives it a go.

“But then, once they get past your team, it’s all up to you. And you say, ‘I’m ticked off. I want it !’ ”

And if that player is as intimidating as the goalie himself?

“He’s out there, the big guy, the cannon, a total monster,” Hargett said. “But coach tells you, ‘You can do this,’ and you do. You make the block and you’re pumped. You did your job.”