A Player for All Seasons, and Sometimes Two

Just about every coach at Buena Park High School wants Sei Park to play some sport or another, it seems. Park already was playing water polo, wrestling, swimming and running track--that’s two sports in the spring--when Mike Barron, the football coach and an assistant track coach, offered an only half-joking proposition after watching Park sprint this spring: Maybe he would like to play football and water polo in the fall?

Park (his first name is pronounced Say ) is the kind of athlete many a coach will watch with a jealous eye. Either they want him to lend his talents to their team, or if he already does, they are watchful of marauding coaches who might seek to lure him away.

But at Buena Park, Park’s many sports--and their coaches--seem to coexist nicely.

Thus far in his high school athletic career, Park has played one season of freshman-sophomore basketball, one season of soccer, two seasons of water polo, one season of wrestling, one season of track and two seasons of swimming.

And he’s a junior--there’s still next year.

By the time it’s over, Park, who has earned varsity letters in water polo, soccer and wrestling, probably will earn eight letters in five sports. He may earn nine if he cuts his time in the 100-meter breaststroke by two seconds this season.

He hasn’t stopped to think what that will do to a letter jacket.

Park didn’t play a sport in the fall of his freshman year, but he played on the freshman-sophomore basketball team that winter. In the spring, he swam.

His sophomore year, he picked up water polo in the fall, played center-forward on the soccer team in the winter and swam in the spring. This year, he played water polo again, then switched from soccer to wrestling because the soccer team didn’t have a coach at the start of the year. He continued swimming and picked up track. Because swimming and track have concurrent seasons, Park attends only the morning swimming workout (the swim team also practices in the afternoon) and goes to track practice after school.

For Park the explanation is fairly simple.

“I always wanted to swim, although I’m not a good swimmer,” he said. “Water polo was out of curiosity. Wrestling--well, I wanted something kind of violent. And the track coach asked me to run for him.”

So there you have it.

None of this was planned; it just happened. Asked to reflect on his remarkable activity, Park responds: “I like sports.”

Had Park, a native Korean, not moved to the United States four years ago, he said he probably would not be playing any sports at all.

“In Korea you play to be a professional or you don’t play at all,” Park said. “High school students are under a tremendous amount of pressure academically. There’s no time for sports.”

Despite his full sports schedule, Park has hardly neglected his academics.

“It’s pretty difficult,” he said. “But I don’t mind as long as I don’t get behind in my schoolwork. My work academically is my main goal.”

He has made only two Bs in high school. Every other grade has been an A. One B was in English his freshman year--the year after he had arrived in the United States. The other was in advanced placement U.S. history, another class in which he had a slight handicap.

Park would like to be valedictorian, as his brother Phillip was last year. In fact, Park is so eager to help his chances of finishing at the top of his class that he goes to summer school, taking required classes to leave more room for honors classes, which are weighed more heavily in the ranking system.

Park said he is currently about fifth in his class, but that he was third last year, before a system that weighs honors classes more heavily was put into place.

“It’s going to be hard to be valedictorian,” Park said. “I don’t think I can now.”

But if there’s an award for student-athletes, he can hardly miss.

‘I always wanted to swim, although I’m not a good swimmer. Water polo was out of curiosity. Wrestling--well, I wanted something kind of violent. And the track coach asked me to run for him.’