There’s Always Another Option : No Matter What the Obstacle, Leach Finds a Way to Compete

Bill Leach was in Europe with the United States national water polo team in 1970, trying to score goals while the best players in the world tried to drown him, and he was playing well enough to have earned a spot as a starter.

He wasn’t exactly elated, though.

Leach had been sizing up the competition and had begun to wonder if his dream of competing in the Olympics was going to remain just that: a dream. He had always been able to overcome the barriers to athletic success by simply working harder than anyone else. But there was no way he could grow 6 inches and put on 50 pounds before the 1972 Games.

“I was very happy to make the team that went to Europe to play the best teams, including Yugoslavia, which had won the gold medal in 1968, and the Hungarians, who were favored to win it in ‘72,” Leach said. “And I had made the move up from sitting on the bench to starting.

“But the Yugoslavians and Hungarians were all like basketball players. They were all like 6-8, some even 6-10, and between 220 and 240 pounds. Here I was at 5-10 and maybe 165 pounds.”

Leach figured that if Ted Newland--his coach at Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools and later at UC Irvine--was named Olympic coach, he would probably make the team despite his, well, shortcomings.

But he couldn’t be so sure in the event someone else was selected to coach.

“Someone else probably would have gone with another player of similar ability who was bigger,” Leach said. “The selections are so subjective. If you fit into the kind of offense or defense the Olympic coach liked, then naturally you were favored.”

Leach didn’t like the idea of letting his chances of achieving his lifelong goal rest on the whim of a coach. So, never one to let common sense stand in the way of his athletic quests, he decided the best way to get to the Olympics was to quit sloshing through the water and start skimming over it.

He took up kayaking.

Leach didn’t know much about the sport, except that the paddle--and his future in the Olympics--would be in his own hands.

“I had a friend, Tony Ralphs, who I grew up with in Corona del Mar, and he had made the Olympic kayaking team in 1964,” Leach said. “I tried it with Tony, and he was very encouraging. It was kind of like, ‘I did it, so you can do it.’

“I took it up specifically to make an Olympic team because I’ve always wanted to make an Olympic team. I guess it was a very selfish decision on my part. Kayaking wasn’t a major sport, and while it was very competitive at the top, you could break into that top echelon fairly quickly.”

A year later, Leach won a national championship in kayaking. It was a feat he repeated five times in the next five years. And in 1976, he qualified for the Olympic kayaking team in doubles and realized a dream.

He walked with the other U.S. Olympians in opening-day ceremonies in Montreal.

His face in that crowd of the world’s best athletes would have made a nice final scene for the “Bill Leach Story.” Leach and his partner, Mike Johnson of Huntington Beach, finished 18th in a field of 30 teams, but Leach had made it to the cafeteria at the Athletes Village, and that’s what really mattered.

But with Leach, a 45-year-old history teacher at Corona del Mar High School, endings always seem to turn into beginnings. It was that way with his water polo career and it was that way with his stint as a kayaker.

After the glow of 1976, he continued to train with his wife, Julie, who had finished seventh in the women’s singles kayaking final in Montreal. Together, they paddled through the channels of Newport Harbor with visions of a trip to Moscow as motivation.

But then came the decision to boycott the 1980 Games and Leach was weakened by a staph infection during the U.S. Olympic Trials.

“Making the team in ’76 was such an incredible experience for me, and ’80 would have been frosting on the cake,” Leach said. “It was harder for Julie. I was 34, but she was 23 and in a position to win a medal. That made it even more of a blow.

“Then I got the staph infection on my hand, and I was so sick for the Olympic Trials I didn’t even feel like I was there. It was the low point for me in sports.”

Time to retire?

Not for Leach. Just time to find a new sport. He’s not the type to buy a couple of bags of chips and a six-pack, settle into a sofa and watch other people compete. His idea of an uplifting experience is a swim or a bike ride or a run or, as it turned out, all three.

“To take my attention away from the disappointment of the boycott and the pain of the Olympic Trials, I turned to the triathlon,” Leach said.

More than 150 triathlons later, Leach is a five-time national masters (40 and over) champion and two-time masters world champion. In 1990, he competed in 16 races and won the masters division 11 times. He finished second in the five other races and once he was slowed by a flat tire.

On June 2, he’ll be a favorite in the masters division in the Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon in Mission Viejo, an event he won last year.

Some of the younger masters competitors are starting to catch up to Leach, but Newland, who is still the water polo coach at UCI, thinks his protege will continue to find ways to win.

“Bill was never the most gifted swimmer and he never had the greatest speed,” Newland said. “He’s very much the self-made athlete. Even as a little kid, and I first coached him in ninth grade, he had this overwhelming desire. He’s always worked his butt off.

“And few people are as competitive as he is. He just gets this big bang out of competing. He’s got the mental side and he puts the time in on the physical side. Bill Leach is proof that work begets talent.”

Some things never change.

Leach is spending the early hours of the morning swimming laps. In the UCI pool. In the same lane he dragged himself through thousands of meters when he was in college a quarter of a century ago.

“It does seem bizarre,” he said, “and Newland is still working out up in the weight room.”

It doesn’t seem the least bit strange to his wife.

“He sees the training as pure enjoyment, not drudgery,” Julie said. “And I think he’ll always be competing. He loves to compete and that’s why he’s so consistent. A lot of people will pop one or two good ones in a season, but even when he’s having an off-day, his competitive edge still carries him.”

By the age of 45, most athletes have molded their competitive urges to suit the world of business--and maybe some racquetball or a round of golf on the weekend--but Leach is bumping shoulders with folks who swim, bike and run for a living.

He’s made as much as $12,000 in a year competing in triathlons, but he’s not in it for the money.

“I’m not sure anyone wants to say they’re obsessed with anything. But some people would say, ‘Gee, you’re 45 years old and you’re still doing the same things,’ ” he said. “When I was 25 and out of college and I no longer had to train for a scholarship, I had to face a decision. You can go into business or sit home and watch TV.

“But I decided to stay with it until I wasn’t good at it anymore. One thing led to another, and, thanks to the masters division, I haven’t had to face that yet.

“The masters division revitalized my athletic career. It’s night and day between being 39 racing pro (division). Nobody cares if you’re 29 or 39. Then, all of a sudden you’re 40, that magic middle-aged number, and it’s, ‘Wow, you’re still doing this and you’re still good .’ ”

Bill and Julie have a 3-year-old son, Shane. Bill has another son, Bill, 24, and a daughter, Alisha, 20, from a previous marriage.

“I see Bill settling down a little,” Julie said. “We do more things as a family and Bill’s not traveling as much. But I think he’ll always be competing in his age group. I have real trouble visualizing the day when he stops.”

Bill’s father, George, might be thinking his son is too old to be jumping into lakes and pedaling up long hills, but he’s not about to try to tell him what to do. He gave that up about 30 years ago.

“Bill has always done everything on his own,” George Leach said. “He became a Newport Beach lifeguard when he was 15 and he did that on his own. He started swimming and water polo on his own.

“I’m surprised he’s still doing this at 45, but I don’t ever say anything. If he hurts himself, maybe he’ll slow down. But I don’t know what he’ll be like to live with then. I don’t see anything that can take the place of it.”

Helping others compete and succeed could be the answer. Bill and Julie, who were co-coaches of the first girls’ cross-country team at Corona del Mar High in 1977, will be starting the first cross-country program at Irvine Valley College this fall.

They’re excited about the challenge, but will have trouble matching the experience of the Sea Kings’ debut. In the 1977 CIF finals, Corona del Mar finished second to Edison, then the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.

“There were no divisions then, just the best 16 teams in CIF competing,” Leach said. “The girls really had no appreciation of what they were doing, but it was a thrill. It goes back to Newland. You just try to develop an attitude of encouragement and winning.

“But I’ll tell you the nicest thing about coaching. Almost every girl from that team is still running, some competitively, but they’re all still into it. It’s nice to think they cared that much about it. For me, that’s the greatest honor.”

Of course.