UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : After Dry Dock, His Game Thrives

UC Irvine’s Mark Stevenson knew he would be putting water polo aside for a while when he left Citrus College before his sophomore year to go on a Mormon mission.

For the next two years, he would live thousands of miles away, in a place where water polo is often considered little more than a children’s swimming pool game, if it is known at all.

His mission would be a hardship, but Stevenson believed in the importance of his work. So he packed his bags for the faraway land of . . . North Carolina.

“Some of the people there had never heard of water polo. They didn’t know there was such a thing,” Stevenson said. “They’d ask what it was. Maybe 5% had heard of it or seen it on the Olympics. People were very surprised when I told them lots of high schools have teams. People would ask me what I like to do, and I’d feel kind of dumb. I’d say, ‘I play water polo. We work out all the time. . . . ‘ “

Really, they do.

To a North Carolinian, playing serious competitive water polo sounds about as plausible as being on the varsity Marco Polo team. Then again, they don’t have surfing and badminton teams there, either.

When Stevenson had time to play sports at all, he usually turned to a game more indigenous to the area--basketball.

“I thought about water polo a lot,” he said.

He didn’t come close to working out, though.

“I never even got in the water,” Stevenson said. “You’re not supposed to swim while you’re on your mission. They don’t want you to ride motorcycles, horseback or do anything where you’re more likely to have an accident.”

He was in for quite a shock when he returned to Citrus before last season.

“I swam four laps without stopping and thought I was going to pass out,” he said. “The swimming part was a lot harder to get back into than I thought it would be. I’m still not that fast. Then again, I’ve never been that fast.”

He has been quick to fit in with the Irvine team, which is ranked fourth in the country. With 25 goals this season, Stevenson is the team’s third-leading scorer behind seniors Pablo Yrizar and Steve Gill, who each have 43 goals.

Coach Ted Newland has been pleased with Stevenson’s adjustments to playing in the toughest ranks of college water polo.

“He’s a J.C. transfer coming off a Mormon mission, so he’s 23, and mentally, he’s pretty mature,” Newland said.

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The water polo team has made quite a run lately, winning nine matches in a row heading into the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship Saturday and Sunday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

Last week, Irvine defeated No. 6 UCLA, No. 5 Pepperdine, No. 7 UC Santa Barbara and No. 17 UC Riverside.

Over the last nine matches, the Anteaters have outscored their opponents, 94-42.

Gill had a good week in one day on Sunday, when he scored nine goals during a doubleheader. He had four against Santa Barbara and added five--all in the second half--against Riverside.

Irvine, seeded fifth in the conference tournament, plays 12th-seeded Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in the first round.

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Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor for student affairs, said Tuesday he is content to make a selection for athletic director between Brad Rothermel and Vic Cegles.

Rothermel, formerly athletic director at Nevada Las Vegas, and Cegles, an assistant athletic director at Arizona State, are the two remaining candidates after Fairleigh Dickinson Athletic Director Roy Danforth withdrew his name.

Mitchell received Danforth’s letter of withdrawal over the weekend.

The key issue in the decision now appears to be funding. Mitchell called Rothermel Tuesday and discussed the university’s financial commitment to the department.

Rothermel has said his interest in the job is contingent on the athletic program having a competitive budget--approximately $4 million a year, in his estimation. It now stands at about $2.5 million. Mitchell apparently is preparing for a meeting regarding the decision with L. Dennis Smith, the acting chancellor.

Cegles said he has not spoken with Mitchell since the interview.

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The sixth-place finish of the women’s cross-country team at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo invitational last week stood out.

The No. 21 team in the country, sixth? And beaten by Cal State Fullerton for the first time in school history? The results made some people speculate that Irvine’s top runners hadn’t raced.

“They ran,” said Coach Vince O’Boyle, who described the trip back as “the fastest drive home from Cal Poly SLO in history.”

Irvine’s top runner, Traci Goodrich, had been sick and finished 14th. Tiffany York has a broken pinky on her right foot, and hadn’t trained much for the past two weeks. Tanja Brix had a cold.

“Everything piled up into one big thing. It just caught everybody,” O’Boyle said. “We didn’t perform near to the way we’re capable of running.”

The conference championship--which Irvine has won nine of the past 10 years--is Oct. 31 in Hawaii.

Anteater Notes

Chris Groff, former coach of the Guatemalan national tennis team, has been named an assistant to first-year men’s tennis Coach Steve Clark. Former Anteater player Carsten Hoffman has been named a part-time assistant. . . . Amee Chapman, goalkeeper for the women’s soccer team, set a school single-season record with her seventh shutout Saturday. With 10 during her career, she is closing in on Alicia Miller’s career record of 12. . . . Tod Murphy and Scott Brooks, who played together on the 1985-86 UCI team that went to the National Invitation Tournament and later with the Minnesota Timberwolves, are together again with the Houston Rockets. . . . A 16-team lacrosse tournament will be held Saturday and Sunday at Crawford Field. There is no admission charge for the event, hosted by the UC Irvine men’s club team. The title game is at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.