Pooling His Resources : Tucay Passed Up Football Field, Taking His Size Into the Water to Help Burroughs Rise From the Depths to Near the Top of the Southern Section’s Water Polo Ranks

Burroughs High football coaches have nothing but praise for Alfonso Tucay.

At 6 feet 4, 235 pounds, he is charismatic, intelligent and talented, meeting all requirements as Big Man On Campus.

Tucay scored 10 times in one game and nine times in another.

Unfortunately for Indian football coaches, Tucay’s scores haven’t come on a football field.

Tucay, one of the best water polo players in the region, would be the biggest player on the Burroughs football team.

Before he arrived three years ago, Burroughs routinely floundered at or near rock bottom of the Almont League standings. The Indians have never won a league title, or so much as advanced to the Southern Section playoffs.

Until this year.

With Tucay scoring a team-high 100 goals, Burroughs, which finished second in the league behind Bell Gardens, has a 18-6 record and is ranked ninth in the Southern Section’s Division III poll.

The Indians play host to Peninsula on Tuesday in the second round of the Division III playoffs.

“He is responsible for a lot of the turnaround of this program,” Burroughs Coach John Kunishima said. “I don’t think there is a better player in the[Section].”

Tucay didn’t play water polo before high school. And even then he at first participated only to fulfill the school’s physical-education requirement.

But inexperience hasn’t stopped Tucay from establishing himself as a dominant player. He was all-league as a sophomore and has elevated his game this season despite opponents who have concentrated their efforts on stopping him.

Tucay’s performance in a game against rival Burbank last month was fairly typical. Although he was double-teamed, Tucay scored five goals and set up teammates for several others. Burroughs won, 19-4.

“He is a force because of his size,” Burbank Coach John Olin said. “He controls anybody who tries to guard him. It’s very difficult to keep him from getting the ball. Most guys just bounce off him.”

Tucay is a fast swimmer--Kunishima uses him as a sprinter at the start of each quarter--and his size makes him particularly difficult to move around at the defensive end. He also is the team’s top passer. But what he does best is score.

“Nobody can guard him one on one,” Kunishima said. “You can literally bear-hug the guy and he will still get off a shot.”

Tucay enjoys Burroughs goals no matter who scores them.

“I just like to play the game,” he said. “I’m happy when I make a cool pass and I’m happy when I score, too.”

Mostly, he’s just happy, period.

Soft-spoken and well-mannered, Tucay is known as “Fonzie” or “The Fonz” by his friends.

“If the team had a vote for the nicest guy on the team, Alfonso would win hands down,” Kunishima said.

That image is shed when he hits the water.

“I try to become more aggressive and get meaner,” Tucay said. “I hear coaches telling their players to ‘get the big guy’ but I don’t care, I just do what I’ve got to do.”

That goes for business in and out of the water. Tucay has maintained a 3.5 grade-point average despite a challenging course load that includes advanced-placement biology, advanced-placement history, honors English, pre-calculus, French III and psychology.

What little spare time Tucay has he usually dedicates to improving himself as an athlete. He is a regular in the Burroughs weight room and there is rarely a day he doesn’t have a workout of some sort in the pool.

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His work ethic has paid dividends. After playing club water polo during the summer, he was among 14 players selected to a 15-and-under team from Southern California that placed second in the Junior Olympics.

Tucay started out as a swimmer. His father, Alfonso Sr., held the Philippines record in the 50- and 100-meter butterfly in the mid-1960s. Alfonso Jr. took up the sport at the age of 3, when the Tucay family lived in Mission Viejo.

Two years later, after the Tucays moved to Burbank, young Alfonso joined the Burbank Blue Marlins, a youth swimming team. But then the family moved again, this time to Houston to enable his sister, Christi, to attend a prestigious gymnastics camp.

“When we moved to Texas, I lost interest in swimming,” Tucay said.

The family returned to Burbank in 1993, after Christi won a national juniors championship in rhythmic gymnastics.

“When I got to high school I needed a sport,” he said. “One of the football coaches tried to get me to come out but I wasn’t interested so I played water polo.”

The Burroughs program hasn’t been the same since.

The year before Tucay’s arrival the Indians were 3-15. With him, the varsity is 26-13.

He still has another year of high school left, but already Tucay is looking beyond. He would like to play Division I water polo, preferably for a school in California, then perhaps shoot for a spot on the U.S. national team in time to play in the 2000 Olympics.

“Without a doubt he can make it,” Kunishima said. “He is going to be one of the best. When he makes up his mind he is unstoppable.”