Art of Surfacing : Vargas Hopes to Take Success He’s Enjoyed Locally to International Level With U.S. Water Polo Team

John Vargas is a 35-year-old man with a part-time job. He drives a vintage 1970s Volkswagen bus and lives alone in a sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment.

It could be the description of a slacker’s life. Vargas, however, couldn’t be further from that, as the high school water polo players he coaches at Corona del Mar High can testify.

Emphasizing strenuous training, self-discipline and meticulous preparation, Vargas presides over one of the most successful athletic programs in Orange County. During his 14 seasons at Corona del Mar, Vargas has led the Sea Kings to the Southern Section championship game eight times, winning four titles.

And now Vargas is America’s water polo coach, the man picked to lead the quest at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

It won’t be easy. The U.S. national team isn’t supposed to win.

European teams dominate international water polo. The United States won silver medals in 1984 and 1988, but has never won a gold, except at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis when only teams from the United States competed.

Last summer in Atlanta, the U.S. team performed below expectations, finishing seventh and leaving U.S. Water Polo in turmoil. The U.S. Olympic Committee bases its financial support on results, and seventh place means a $500,000 reduction in USOC funding in the next four years. National team players who received a $15,000 yearly stipend while training for 1996 stand to get only $2,500 this time.

And this time there is more pressure to produce results immediately. As the host nation, the United States received an automatic spot in the field in Atlanta, but must qualify for Sydney.

Time is short. When Vargas officially steps into the job in January, he will have less than five months before the team’s first major international competition.

Most of the players on the 1996 team are expected back, but about half are playing professionally in Europe and might not return until several weeks before the FINA World Cup in May in Athens.

Vargas wades into the fray without any experience as a head coach on the international level. He says he’ll be ready.

“I feel that I will do a good job because I’m going to make it happen,” Vargas said. “I’m going to try to make it happen. But really by nature I’m not an optimistic person. I’m a pessimist. I think the worst is going to happen and I try to prepare for it.”

Currently, Vargas is preparing for the high school postseason--the Sea Kings play Mission Viejo Thursday at Trabuco Hills High in the first round of the Southern Section Division I playoffs.

That Corona del Mar even made the playoffs this season is somewhat of a surprise and a testament to Vargas’ effectiveness as a coach.

With players less talented than usual to work with, Vargas adjusted his typical game plan. He slowed down the pace and nearly led the Sea Kings to the Sea View League title; they lost only one league game, 4-3, to champion El Toro on a goal at the fourth-quarter buzzer.

At 5 feet 8 with the build of a water polo player--solid upper body, skinny legs--Vargas doesn’t look that far removed from his high school players.

In conversation, his voice is modulated, sounding like a cross between a surfer and a late-night disc jockey. But directed at players on the pool deck, it takes on a sense of urgency.

Chris Oeding, a member of the U.S. national team who played at Corona del Mar from 1985-88, said Vargas is trusted completely by his players.

“He made me believe that I could do more than I thought I could,” said Oeding, the Division 4-A player of the year in 1988. “Now that I’m a coach at Orange Coast College, I’m finding out that getting people to play to their potential is hard to do.”

It was never difficult for coaches to get through to Vargas. Despite his size--he weighed less than 150 pounds in high school--he was an excellent player at Hacienda Heights Los Altos. At UC Irvine, he got even better, buying into Coach Ted Newland’s philosophy of strenuous physical fitness. He was a two-time All-American and in 1982 helped the Anteaters to an undefeated season and the NCAA championship.

Newland said Vargas was already thinking like a coach then. “He was tough and smart,’ Newland said. “He’s always been that way.”

In 1983, Vargas took over as Corona del Mar’s walk-on coach and was an immediate success. His teams reached the section championship game six consecutive seasons (1984-89), winning the last three years.

At the same time, Vargas was moving up in the national program, following his older brother, Joe, a member of the 1980 and 1984 Olympic teams. In 1988, John was the last player cut from the Olympic team. In 1992, he played in the Barcelona Olympics and afterward retired from competition.

Bill Barnett, coach at Newport Harbor and the Olympic coach in ’88 and ‘92, often called Vargas a coach in the pool.

So it was a natural progression when Vargas accepted a position as an assistant on the national team in 1993. He worked in the background on Coach Rich Corso’s staff.

Goalkeeper Chris Duplanty, a three-time Olympian, said Vargas was a favorite of the players in Atlanta. “With all the stress of the situation, everybody on the team was going up to John for advice,” Duplanty said. “The things he said were so respected that he was able to put them at ease.”

When Corso decided not to seek the position for the next four years, Vargas applied and beat out Steve Heaston, the coach at California, among others.

The water polo community seems pleased by Vargas’ selection. In the past, infighting within U.S. Water Polo has been a problem. Two factions--loosely identified as Newport and Long Beach--have battled for control of the organization. Usually, the competition has been healthy, but the last three coaches--Corso, Barnett and Monte Niztkowski--have said they entered the Olympics feeling that people within the organization were hoping they would fail, said Rich Foster, former president of U.S. Water Polo.

“John is the only one I can think of who has strong ties to both groups,” Foster said. “I think that will be a big help to him.”

If there is any concern among water polo people, it is that Vargas lacks experience internationally as a head coach. But his knowledge of the game and strong relationship with players were overriding factor.

Plus Vargas won’t be alone. John Tanner, coach at Pacific, and UCLA Coach Guy Baker have agreed to be his assistants, and Vargas reports to Barnett, the new chairman of U.S. Water Polo’s men’s international committee.

Even so, Vargas is placing the burden mostly on himself. Recently, someone asked him if he has celebrated his new position.

“Celebrate what?” he asked. “I’ll celebrate when we get to the Olympics and I’ll celebrate after we medal. Celebrate when you get the job? No. When you get the job you have to go to work.”