Hipp Key to Facing No. 1 USC

UC Irvine goalkeeper Dan Hipp was a gangly, introspective high school sophomore in hotter-than-ever Fresno when he figured that playing water polo would be a cool way to get some exercise.

“I was a geek,” Hipp said. “I don’t think my parents would like to hear me say those words, but I wasn’t really interested in extracurricular activities. I was much more artsy.”

He wasn’t the best swimmer at Fresno Edison High, either, and soon found himself treading water with water polo balls being fired at his head.

Batting those shots away became an exercise in self-defense.

Now it’s a skill he has mastered.

An art major and fifth-year walk-on, Hipp’s canvas lately has been the pool. He has stopped 48 shots for the fourth-ranked Anteaters (5-1, 1-0), including 13 against third-ranked UCLA in a 9-7 overtime victory.

UCLA was top-ranked at the time, and today the Anteaters get another shot at knocking off No. 1 when USC (6-0, 1-0) visits the Anteaters at noon for a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game. The Trojans beat Irvine, 8-5, in last week’s Southern California tournament and to beat USC this time, the Anteaters need a big game from Hipp, who until this season had played in only 10 college games.

“Danny had a really good junior year where he played really, really well in several games,” Anteater Coach Ted Newland said. “But he he did not play in key games.”

Hipp sat on the Irvine pool deck recently and marveled at how he has become the starting goalkeeper on one of the best teams in the nation. He still doesn’t consider himself much of a jock.

“I was the kind of kid who did club soccer in elementary school just to have something to do, and then I’d end up scoring on my own team by accident,” he said.

But at Fresno Edison coaches took one look at his 6-foot-7 frame and big arm span and saw potential. Hipp wasn’t so sure.

“I just looked like I knew what I was doing in the water more than the other rejects,” he said.

His real forte was sketching page after page of cartoon characters.

“I was a big doodler,” Hipp said. “I had a hard time paying attention in class, not because I had an attention disorder, but because I’d much rather draw Batman.”

Older brother Nat played water polo in high school and went out for crew at Stanford. Younger sister Jaime is the goalkeeper for the UCLA women’s water polo team. Dan Hipp eventually joined a club team and was twice named All-Northern League at Edison, but water polo continued to be secondary to his artwork.

An art career was his main focus in the spring of 1996, when Hipp and his mother, Susan, took a week to explore colleges around the state. Most had water polo programs but many of those, such as UC Davis and Redlands, didn’t compete at the Division I level. That didn’t matter to him.

Then Hipp and his mom visited Irvine. Hipp was immediately impressed when he met Newland. The coach told him that Irvine already had several outstanding keepers and that the school did not have a scholarship to offer, but that Hipp was always welcome in the pool.

Ignorant of what he was getting into, Hipp told Newland that he wasn’t looking for a free education, just a good place to study art and enjoy college life. It was some months later that Hipp came to realize Irvine’s was a Division I program that had won 70% of its matches and three national titles over the last 35 years.

“I saw the schedule for the first time,” Hipp said, “and I went, ‘Wow, we play Stanford?’ I didn’t realize that we were at such a high caliber of play.”

Newland saw a sleeper in Hipp.

“He’s a very self-motivated kid,” Newland said. “He’s been very, very patient and worked hard at it. He very seldom gets emotionally blown away. He’s very steady.”

Still, it took Hipp, who redshirted his freshman year, four years to become the No. 1 goalkeeper.

“He had another goalie in front of him all the time, each year,” Newland said. Hipp said that the more he practiced, the better he got, even if he wasn’t playing in games. Newland respected the fact that Hipp hung in there, and developed an uncanny ability to stay in front of the ball.

Out of the water, Hipp remains a budding artist. Portable CD players and video games are standard equipment for most college athletes on the road. Hipp takes a sketch pad.

“I enjoy it as an outlet for creativity,” he said. “It’s an easy way to relax, especially on the road where thoughts about the past game can consume you.”