Benson Takes On Life’s Challenges : Athlete Is Courageous Amid Hardship

El Dorado’s Kendall Benson is one of those water polo players who makes things happen.

On offense or defense, Benson has done the things necessary to lead the Golden Hawks into Wednesday’s Southern Section Division II championship game.

Out of the pool, he’s had similar success, having a 3.94 grade-point average and scoring 1190 on the Scholastic Assessment Test. He was even voted homecoming king. Good things don’t just happen to Benson, El Dorado Coach Michael Ashe said, they come because he works at it.

“Everything he does,” Ashe said, “he’s an animal about.”

These days, Benson is praying for his father. About a month ago, doctors found cancer in Bob Benson’s liver. Two weeks ago, more cancer was found in his lungs.

Saturday morning, after three consecutive days of chemotherapy, Bob Benson checked out of St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton in time to see his son play in the Division II semifinals. From a wheelchair on the deck at Long Beach State, he watched as Kendall scored six goals in a 12-9 victory over Los Alamitos.

The contrast is heart-rending: In the pool, Benson is hard to stop. Out of it, he’s powerless to help his father. “You just have to leave it in the hands of God,” Benson said. “Hopefully everything will come out all right. I’m not a doctor. I can’t go in there and do anything.”

The Benson family has dealt with hardship before. When Kendall was 3, his father was paralyzed from the waist down in an off-road motorcycle accident. Six years ago Bob Benson, a chemistry teacher at Esperanza High, lost an eye to cancer.

Yet, you’ll never hear Kendall ask “Why me?”

“He’s showing more courage and more class, handling it better at 18 than I did when I was 33 and my mother died of cancer,” Ashe said. “I think that says a lot for his family.

“I think they’ve learned how to handle it. This is just one more challenge. Their focus is on God’s will and not on what they want. You might say that in the spirit of God and the spirit of life the Benson family is the ultimate team.”

Benson’s other team--El Dorado water polo--also provides comfort. He is especially close with fellow seniors Robert Sellek and Luke Byward. The Three Amigos, as Ashe calls them, started playing together as freshmen, learning the game together.

“Our freshman and sophomore years it was tough,” Benson said. “But we’re so tight now that we can almost read each other’s minds. It’s great. These guys are like an extended family to me.”

Certainly then, Benson is the patriarch. The player of the year in the Empire League, Benson plays at two meters on offense and defense, two of the most demanding positions in water polo.

At 6 feet 2 1/2 and 185 pounds, he’s not excessively big, but few can match his strength (he can bench press 315 pounds). He’s a powerful swimmer and has the ability to dominate.

Early in the fourth quarter against Los Alamitos Saturday, Benson made an outstanding move. After receiving a pass with his back to the goal and a defender behind him, he popped the ball over the defender, whipped himself around and with only the goalkeeper to beat, scored.

Against Costa Mesa in the quarterfinals, it was a backhand shot that caught the goalkeeper out of position. “It was one of those Division I-college type shots,” Ashe said. “Bam, it was in.”

But such plays are the exception for Benson, usually he blends in with the team, only occasionally exploding to the surface. The Golden Hawks’ leading scorer by far, Benson doesn’t know how many goals he has.

That team-first orientation pervades the Golden Hawks, Ashe said, and is the main reason they have advanced farther than most expected. Before the season, many thought El Dorado wasn’t even the best team in the Empire League. Katella was ranked higher in the division in the preseason coaches’ poll.

El Dorado beat Katella, 11-6, for the league title and in the playoffs has knocked off fourth-seeded and defending champion Costa Mesa and top-seeded Los Alamitos. Next up is third-seeded Laguna Beach for the title Wednesday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

Benson’s father plans to be there. Benson plans to try to keep his attention on matters he can control.

“Since I found out I’ve tried to focus on water polo,” he said. “Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. That’s why I have my family and teammates to help me and support me.”