Newland Still Making Waves at His Age : Water polo: UC Irvine coach continues to push his players, and himself, harder to succeed.

Ted Newland is 65 and has been coaching the UC Irvine water polo team for almost half his life. But “the old man” is still innovating, recreating his art as master motivator.

His latest ploy is to start practice and then give the guys an unexpected day off . . . as punishment.

“If I don’t get total concentration from my players, I leave. I go home,” he says. “I tell them, ‘My time is more important than your time, so if you’re going to screw around, I’m leaving.’ And I turn my back and walk away.

“It doesn’t happen very often and they don’t like it all. They consider that the worst punishment I can give them, a big putdown. Now, if they think I’m going to walk, they all shut up and listen to the old man.

“The most important thing I have is time. Maybe it’s not that way for them, but I’m not going to live that much longer.”

If Newland has his players believing that, he’s really good--after all, this is a guy who still works out three hours a day--but his legacy at Irvine is already well established just in case.

In 27 seasons, his teams have made it to the NCAA final four 17 times. The Anteaters won the title in 1970, 1982 and 1989 and were runners-up six times. Newland has been named NCAA coach of the year four times.

Those accomplishments are even more impressive considering that water polo powers Cal and Stanford have more scholarships and offer a degree from a school always rated near the top of the national rankings for graduate earnings.

This year’s Irvine team is ranked No. 5 in the country and has a chance to move up after beating third-ranked Pacific, 8-6, Sunday in the Heritage Park pool.

“I have to develop my talent, but there’s a lot of talent out there,” Newland said. “We’ve got some talented players on this team, but we don’t have a real big, strong center and water polo is a lot like basketball in that respect. If you don’t have a strong center, it makes everything a little more difficult.”

Has Newland put together another focused band of overachievers?

Said one All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation coach, who doesn’t want to be identified because he doesn’t want to provide Newland with any more motivational fodder: “He’s got a bunch of puny guys and he’s got them playing better than anyone in the country right now.”

Ted Newland is 65 and works for free, a choice he made two years ago to save the program when water polo was under the financial ax during budget-cutting measures. Remember baseball?

A former history teacher, he mixes lectures on history, discussions of current affairs, lessons in technique, sports psychology and a dose of screaming into the team’s twice-a-day workouts.

There’s seldom a dull moment and always something new.

Newland has been stressing mind over muscles for decades but he recently discovered a book, “Mental Toughness Training for Sports” by James Loehr, which he says sums up what he’s been trying to teach young men for years.

“I’ve always been very big on the mental side, and the stuff that I’ve always talked about, he consolidates real well,” Newland said. “He just has a good way of presenting it. He explains that you only compete against yourself, never your opponent, because that’s all you have control of anyway. If you can get an athlete to totally forget about the winning and the losing and concentrate on performance, then you eliminate a lot of the things that get in the way, like the fear of losing that blows your mind away.

“It’s also very positive to deal with performance, because by nature, anytime you’re dealing with a ball and a game, there’s a lot of luck involved and you can’t guarantee victory no matter how well you play.”

Newland now has his players fill out a self-evaluation form after games. They rate their performance in 11 categories, such as Eyes Controlled, Rituals, Breathing, Management of Mistakes, Confident Fighter Image and “I Love the Battle.”

“I look them over, but it’s more for them than me,” Newland said. “Mental toughness is really just dealing with the present, which is a very hard thing to do. We all think about what happened in the past or what people will think about us in the future. Mental toughness is learning to center on the present.”

Newland says he’s learning along with his players, learning how to keep his concentration on the game and not its emotions, learning how to rise above the end-all and be-all of victory and defeat.

“I don’t get as down on my players when we lose as I used to,” he said. “I’m centered on performance now. We lost to Cal recently and I was watching the videotape, not paying attention to the score and I realized that we had performed very well, that for the most part we did what we wanted to do. But they had a couple of lucky goals, some balls that hit the front part of a wave, for instance, and skipped and stayed low instead of going high like they usually do.

“It’s helped during games, too. Before a game, I visualize what I have to do to perform as a coach and then I don’t let myself get mentally blown away as easily as I used to.”

Ted Newland is 65 and still lean, mean and smelling like chlorine.

Chris Duplanty, now a goalie on the U.S. national team, is one of dozens of former players who has lived in a cottage behind Newland’s Costa Mesa home. He says Newland’s devotion to fitness was sometimes downright depressing.

“We’d practice from 6 to 8 in the morning and then come dragging home from classes just wanting to grab a nap before the evening practice,” Duplanty said. “You’d be flopped on the couch and then he’d come out to the garage and do 1,000 sit-ups and put in an hour or so on the bike.

“I guess you could say we were inspired.”

A bad back and the ravages of time on tendon and bone have slowed Newland’s still-rigorous regimen. He’s started driving to work instead of bicycling and has been forced to cut out the thousands of sit-ups that used to be a daily routine.

“I’m an old man,” he said. “There are a lot of things I can’t do anymore. I’d like to work out more, but my body rejects me if I do. I can’t do the stuff in the weight room I’d like to. I’d work out more if I could, because it’s fun.”

It might be a little hard to tell at times, but Newland is still coaching water polo for the same reason. “If you’re not having fun, then get off the trolley and go somewhere else,” he says.

And for Newland, the track always leads back to the pool.

“I really like my players. I guess that’s what keeps me going,” he said. “I have a great family of former players. They stay in touch and visit and talk to my players, help with their connections in the business world and whatever.”

“I’m a teacher above all else. I see myself as a teacher. I like to watch them grow and develop and see them turn into neat human beings and be able to feel like I’ve been important in their growth process. That’s exciting.”

Newland sits near a whirlpool in the Irvine training room where a trainer has just finished pulling, bending, stretching--coercing--his joints and muscles to go beyond the call of duty for yet another day.

He considers retirement . . . the way he considers sitting on the couch watching game shows all day.

“I’ll probably do this for at least another five years,” he says. “I feel good. I work the same amount of hours now as when I was getting paid and I have a great time every day, which is more than most people can say.”