It’s Doug Kimbell’s Job to Make Waves and Influence Offenses : Olympics: Villa Park graduate, who would ‘rather do the pounding than get pounded on,’ excels on defense for U.S. water polo team.

Outside of the boxing ring or the Greco-Roman wrestling mat, the roughest action at the Olympic Games in Barcelona may take place in the Municipal Swimming Pool.

That’s where the water polo players will be kicking and elbowing, even scratching and punching it out in the Games’ most physical team sport.

Undoubtedly, Doug Kimbell will dish out his share of abuse--it’s his job. Kimbell, a 1978 graduate of Villa Park High School, is the primary two-meter defender on the U.S. team, which means he’s usually responsible for guarding the opponent’s biggest, strongest player.

At 6 feet 9 and 230 pounds, Kimbell isn’t out-muscled by many, and with an arm-span of more than 7 feet, he is able to knock the ball away from players before they can reach it.

Perhaps Kimbell’s most important role is to annoy. The two-meter man, also called the hole set, is the heart of a water polo team’s offense, a combination of point guard and center in basketball.

Kimbell’s goal is to disrupt the offensive flow. He has special insight into what bothers the two-meter man from his days playing the position in high school and at Cal State Long Beach.

“When you play two-meter offense, you get beat up a lot,” Kimbell said. “You have people hanging on you. They’re always pushing you, always hitting you and I had a problem with that. I had a bad attitude in high school and college. I would hit back and get kicked out.

“I’d much rather hit. I’d much rather do the pounding than get pounded on.

“You know what bothers him (two-meter man), so you do it. If you can get the offensive player to think about what you’re doing, as opposed to what’s going on with his own offense, then you’re winning.”

In a crucial match last summer, Kimbell went beyond the usual grabbing and pushing. Playing Spain in a semifinal match of the FINA World Cup, Kimbell checked to see that the referees weren’t watching and then punched the player he was guarding.

A punch to the face--if detected, he likely would have been ejected--is not a tactic Kimbell often uses, he says.

“There’s only a few players in the world that are kind of dirty,” Kimbell said. “For the most part, everyone’s physical but no one’s really dirty anymore. And I was saying, ‘One time.’ It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

It turned out to be effective. The United States defeated Spain, 6-5, to advance to the title match. There the Americans beat Yugoslavia, 7-6, for their first major international water polo title since the 1904 Olympics.

“Every time he went to set hole in the next quarter and a half, he worried about it,” Kimbell said of the receiver of the punch. “He was constantly trying to get me, which was fine because he wasn’t paying attention to his offense anymore.”

Though defense is his forte--U.S. Coach Bill Barnett says Kimbell is the best two-meter defender in the world--Kimbell is also a powerful offensive threat.

It hasn’t always been that way. Though he was a dominant offensive player at Villa Park (where he still holds the school’s single-season scoring record at 116) and Long Beach, he was hesitant to shoot when he first joined the national team. For instance, he scored only two goals in seven matches in the United States’ silver-medal winning performance at the ’88 Games in Seoul.

“I always had the outside shot, but my outside shots weren’t always in the goal,” Kimbell said. “I made 116 goals my senior year in high school; I probably missed 300. My accuracy was never very good, but every year it has gotten better.”

With added confidence on offense and an outside shot that has been clocked at 54 m.p.h.--the fastest on the U.S. team--Kimbell has become the Americans’ second-highest scorer. In the past four international tournaments, only Chris Humbert has scored more goals.

Kimbell has also toned down the temper that often used to get him kicked out of matches. Jeff Ehrlich, who coached Kimbell at Villa Park, believes the temper was one of the reasons it took Kimbell five years to move up from the national “B” team.

“Because of his size, he had to mature quickly because people would beat him up,” Ehrlich said. “He eventually decided, ‘To play at this level, I’m going to have to learn to take my licks.’ ”

Recently, Kimbell was hit accidentally by a teammate in practice, causing a cut that took 17 stitches. On Wednesday, two days after it happened, he was back in the pool practicing.

“He pulled the stitches out himself Saturday,” Ehrlich said. “The guy is pretty tough.”

All the evidence points to the fact that Kimbell is among the best at his sport in the world. But because his sport is water polo, he and his wife, Kim, must help make ends meet by managing the Long Beach apartment complex they reside in.

It’s enough to make one wonder.

“Every time I read in the paper, ‘So and so signed a $2 million contract for the year’ or something like that, I think I should have stuck to basketball,” Kimbell said, laughing.

It’s easy for him to laugh at the thought. Kimbell grew six inches to 6-6 before entering ninth grade and naturally was recruited to play basketball.

But by his own admission, he was a horrible basketball player. (His coordination was such that a former coach said Kimbell could trip over a foul line.)

But he became graceful in the pool and eventually was named most valuable player of the Century League and a two-time All-American at Long Beach.

Now 32, Kimbell may have hit his stride. Because of his versatile play, he has received a couple of offers to play professionally in Europe after the Olympics.

The salaries pale in comparison to the salaries of other professional athletes, but for someone who has postponed pursuing a career for water polo, $50,000 for openers can be an eye-opener.

The offers--from clubs in Sicily and Barcelona--also include a rent-free apartment and Kimbell hopes that his playing professionally will help him and Kim buy a house.

If he plays in Europe a couple of seasons, Kimbell said, he will probably try to make his third U.S. Olympic team; otherwise, he may have to give up the highest level of the sport for more gainful employment.