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USC’s O’Rourke, Smith Bond Beyond the Water

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Water polo is one of those collegiate sports in which fun and friendship rank right up there with the fierce competition. There are no dreams of wealth and fame. Only about 10 players on a team of 28 even have scholarships.

Stever O’Rourke and Darin Smith, two of USC’s non-scholarship players, have quite a friendship because of water polo, and each has had times when he really needed a friend.

O’Rourke is a senior driver. He says his unusual nickname evolved from his given name, Steven Robert. His mother began calling him Steve R., then just Stever.

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Smith is a senior goalie.

He and O’Rourke have been best friends since fifth grade, when they started playing age-group water polo.

They continued playing through their days at Huntington Beach Marina High and now hope to help the Trojans win an NCAA championship in the final four starting today at Pepperdine.

USC will be trying to win its second national title in three years. The Trojans lost to Pepperdine in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament last weekend and finished fifth. An at-large berth gave them new life.

UCLA, the MPSF champion, will be defending the national championship it won last year.

In the first semifinal today, UCLA plays Navy at 1 p.m., followed about 2:30 by USC-UC San Diego. The winners meet Sunday for the title at 2:30, after the 1 p.m. third-place game.

While some of the fun is gone for UCLA because of Adam Wright’s lost eligibility, USC players talk of unity and harmony, even though the team includes a Yugoslav coach, Jovan Vavic, four Yugoslav players, two Hungarians and a German.

“We all get along really well,” O’Rourke said. “There may be problems on some teams that have a lot of foreigners, but that’s sure not the case with us.”

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Said Vavic, “It’s a very close-knit group, and the leadership Stever and Darin provide is one reason for that. Without their leadership we would not be where we’re at.”

They also were part of USC’s championship team in 1998, a year Vavic coached both the men’s and women’s teams to national titles.

Titles aside, O’Rourke is just glad to be playing.

On Sept. 3, 1997, he was headed for practice on a skateboard when he was hit by a car. He suffered a head injury and had to have shoulder surgery. Doctors told him the shoulder injury was so severe that his water polo days were over.

He sat out one season, then, with encouragement from Smith, was able to make a comeback. He has a career-high 22 goals this season, five of them in an 11-6 victory over Stanford on Nov. 5.

“Darin showed me a lot of support,” O’Rourke said. “He kept telling me to be upbeat.”

They dealt with a worse tragedy as high school seniors when the sister of Smith’s girlfriend died of cancer at 17.

“We were both close to her,” O’Rourke said. “She was in our circle of friends.”

Now Smith’s mother is being treated for breast cancer, and O’Rourke has been there for him. Water polo has been a good diversion.

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Smith and O’Rourke say they chose water polo as their sport because they enjoyed it.

“I was a pitcher in Little League,” Smith said. “But baseball was too boring. Water polo is a lot more fun.”

What would really be fun for Smith, O’Rourke and their Trojan teammates this weekend would be celebrating another national championship.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship

At Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool, Pepperdine:

SEMIFINALS

Today

* UCLA (17-7*) vs. Navy (24-10),

1 p.m.

* UC San Diego (20-8) vs. USC (22-4), 2:30 p.m.

FINALS

Sunday

* Third-place game, 1 p.m.

* Championship, 2:30 p.m.

*--Record includes four forfeits

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