Duplanty Longs to Make a Big Splash : Water polo: With Craig Wilson gone, the former UC Irvine goalkeeper hopes to do more than mark time in Olympics.

If you marvel at the dedication of an athlete who maintains the motivation to train four years for a brief shot at Olympic glory, prepare to be awed by the zeal of Chris Duplanty.

Duplanty, 27, has been training for his chance to compete in the Olympics for more than a decade. And, for most of that time, he couldn’t see the carrot dangling on the end of the pole with binoculars.

Oh, he has been to the Summer Games. Two of them. Got the sweats. Marched in the opening ceremonies. Hung out in the athletes’ village and traded pins. Been there. Done that.

And still he’s training for the day in 1996 when he’ll be a bona fide participant in Olympic competition. Duplanty made the U.S. water polo team in 1988. A wide-eyed junior goalkeeper from UC Irvine, he was the only college player on a veteran and talented team. He also happened to play the same position as Craig Wilson, only the best goalkeeper in the history of the game.

Duplanty barely got his Speedos wet, but he got a silver medal.

Four years later, Duplanty was back. But so was Wilson, who returned from Europe where he was playing professional water polo, and led the United States to a fourth-place finish. This time Duplanty entered the water in a game against France. The United States had a relatively safe lead, 11-1.

His total playing time in two Olympics is less than two minutes.

“When you sit as much as I have,” Duplanty said, “you can’t help but wonder, ‘Am I any good?’ You lose confidence and you can’t help but question yourself. I realized that I was behind the world’s best goalkeeper, undeniably, in everyone’s mind. You know where you stand. That part is very clear. But then there’s the question of, ‘How far behind am I?’

“If being on an Olympic team, just having that experience, was all that was motivating me, I would have been finished after ’88. But what kept me training and playing the next four years and what made me decide to keep going until ’96 is to find answers to those questions.”

At the moment, Wilson is retired from water polo and says he is enjoying the challenge of his new occupation of installing software in hospitals. Duplanty is in the cage for the U.S. national team.

It appears he will finally get the chance to find out if he’s another Steve Young, or just another water-logged Joe.

“Chris is making the same kinds of blocks and saves and the same kinds of mistakes that Wilson made in 1981 and ’82 when he first came on the national team,” said U.S. Olympic Coach Rich Corso, who was the team’s goalkeeper coach in ’80 and ’84. “Even though he’s a two-time Olympian, he has literally no experience outside of practice. So he’s making some great saves and he’s making some errors as well.

“I think he has the potential to be a fine goalkeeper on this level, but he’s been a chair general for such a long time and now he has to be a field general. He still has to learn when to relax, when to focus on the ball and when to move and make adjustments.”

Duplanty’s debut as No. 1 goalkeeper came two weeks ago in Athens. Starting for the first time since the 1991 World University Games, he helped the U.S. team finish fourth in the FINA World Cup.

“It was the first time I had touched the water in a FINA Cup and the first time I’ve ever played an entire game in an international tournament that meant something,” Duplanty said. “I was trying to look calm, you know smooth as silk, but I was as nervous as anyone.

“I was apprehensive going in, but I’m encouraged coming out. What the FINA Cup did was show that we have things to work on, myself and the team, but it proved to me that I could compete on this level.”

The tournament matches the top eight finishers from the previous year’s Olympics. The U.S. team, led by Wilson, finished last in the World Cup the year after the 1988 Games.

Italy, which won the gold medal in Barcelona, repeated the performance in Athens. Italy and silver-medalist Hungary were virtually the same teams that competed in the ’92 Olympics. The other teams were in various stages of transition.

“Fourth is very good,” said Corso, in his first year as head coach. “Of course we wanted to medal, but fourth at our first major international tournament with the youngest team and the greatest turnover in roster, I’m very proud of what we accomplished.”

Duplanty--who made what Corso describes as “some great saves” but also allowed some goals on “balls I think should be his”--found the experience to be exhilarating and, at the same time, calming.

“It was really exciting,” he said. “And some of my questions were at least partially answered . . . and I liked the answers.”

So Duplanty is diving headlong into Phase 2 of his water polo career, hoping to make some waves of his own.

“I’m so excited about learning by doing again,” he said. “I learned a ton by watching Craig, but there’s a point where you don’t get better, you stall. I know goalies all over the world would love to have the opportunity to watch the best day after day, game after game, but there comes a point where that kind of runs out and you have to find what works for you, develop your own style.

“That’s where I’m at right now and it’s a lot easier to go and work out.”

Apparently, love isn’t the only thing that’s better the second time around.

“It is like starting over,” he said. “I played in high school and college and then there’s this huge amount of time when it was like I almost stopped playing.

“The first Olympics was a dream come true. I’d only been on the team for six months. I was the youngest guy there. I was just blown away. And I still had one more year of college.”

Duplanty helped Irvine win the NCAA championship in 1989 and kept training for the ’92 Games while earning his MBA. When he left Barcelona for his home in Oahu, he was set on contemplating a life beyond the pool deck.

“I wanted to reevaluate my life,” he said. “There’s always a period of depression after the Olympics and I was into this riding-the-pine syndrome. What had I learned in the last four years? That I can sit attentively? That I’m very patient?”

He was working as a substitute teacher and assistant water polo coach at his alma mater, Punahou High School, when he finally made the decision to move back to Newport Beach and stick it out four more years.

“I had to test the water,” he said. “I couldn’t quit without really knowing how good I could’ve been. Could I have been the best in the world? I wouldn’t know and that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

“If I went out and fell on my face, at least I could walk away knowing I gave it my best shot. That’s what has kept me going.”

After the Barcelona Olympics, Duplanty was approached by an Italian professional team. “I guess they liked the way I sat at attention on the bench,” he says, smiling.

Duplanty’s potential was evident in a number of exhibitions, of course, and heck, the guy who sits behind the Joe Montana of water polo probably could start anywhere else.

“I was convinced that sticking around for ’96 would be worth it,” Duplanty said. “And now that I’ve seen what’s happened with Steve Young, I’ve got even more confidence I made the right decision.”

As long as Wilson stays with the computers and out of the pool, Duplanty’s plan should stay on track.

“Craig is a great person and he’s always been very supportive,” Duplanty said. “He says he really enjoys what he’s doing now, but we still joke about him coming back. . . . Well, he jokes about it.”