Rudic Has Method to His Coaching Madness

There were days early in Ratko Rudic’s tenure as coach of the U.S. men’s national water polo team he had players practice until they had nothing left to give--except their previous meal.

“You push on a swim set and guys throw up once in a while,” said two-meter defender Dan Klatt, a standout at UC Irvine. “Now, we’re getting in good shape. Sore shoulders are probably the worst of it.”

Rudic had players work out eight hours a day before the Poseidon Cup in Greece in May. He has also had players lift weights an hour before matches. “That’s not very traditional,” goalkeeper Genai Kerr acknowledged, “but you have to realize Ratko is not traditional. He’s not looking for immediate benefits, he’s looking long term. He wants us to give 100% of ourselves, and when we have nothing left, he wants us to give that much more.”

One man’s tyrant is another’s miracle worker. And Rudic, who in January became the first full-time men’s national team coach and national program director, might have to be a little bit of the former before he can become the latter and restore the program to international prominence.

Rudic, 52, was born in Split, then in Yugoslavia, now in Croatia. He won an Olympic water polo gold medal and an Olympic silver medal playing for Yugoslavia and coached the team to gold in 1984 and 1988. He won a third coaching gold medal with Italy in 1992 and a bronze with Italy at Atlanta in 1996.

After leading Italy to a fifth-place finish in Sydney, Rudic accepted the newly created U.S. job. His primary mission: to improve the fortunes of a program whose Olympic team finished sixth in Sydney and hasn’t won an Olympic medal since silver finishes in 1984 and 1988.

The talent is here, he believes, and he’s hoping for a top-eight finish in the World Championships, to be held July 19-30 in Fukuoka, Japan. He hopes to produce better results by the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens by building a club system that will feed talent to the national team, as is the custom in Europe.

“The U.S. team was always physically prepared very well. Also, technically it is a good team,” he said in his office at the national team training facility in Los Alamitos. “The thing that is always missed is competitive experience, the experience of important games. The experience of making a decision in the last moment, a decision that brings results and can get you the gold medal.”

Only five players have returned from the Sydney roster, but that’s not extraordinary in a post-Olympic year. Nor does it prove the whispers that players quit to protest his tyranny. Most were past college age, and with no professional league in the U.S. in which to earn a living, they went on to other careers or to play in Europe.

“Every year after the Olympics, people decide to move on with their lives,” said Kerr, 24. “A lot of players, including myself, feel privileged to play for a coach of his background.”

Said Klatt: “He’s got such a good reputation, you’re not going to argue with hard work. You see what he’s done and you just want a shot to be like one of those other teams he’s coached. It’s a great experience to play for him.”

Rudic said he orders weightlifting only before friendly matches, not major events. But Rudic, whose team ends a three-game exhibition series against Brazil tonight at El Toro High, won’t back off on his goal of getting players into optimal shape for the combat that occurs above and below the water.

“When I came to Italy 10 years ago, nobody was lifting weights. Now, everybody does,” he said. “It’s a method of work that’s accepted. I have very good experience from this kind of training. Water polo is a very physical game, and only players that have good physical preparation, strength and endurance can play a high-level game. It’s not possible to have players not prepared physically and go to a high level. . . .

“In sport, you can have normal ways of managing a team, or you can have anarchy. I have my method of work, and with my method I won three gold medals. If somebody can convince me better, I will look at it. I hope players believe in teamwork. I try to transfer that to them, that this is necessary to work. I’m always also ready to discuss and explain anything. I make a program and everybody must respect the program. If they don’t respect it, they cannot be part of the team. We can have individual approaches, but we are a team. It’s not easy to train this way, but this is what’s necessary. And I think they are working very good now.”

The U.S. is 9-6-2 and inconsistent. It beat powerful Croatia twice this spring, but finished seventh of eight in the Poseidon Cup. In June, at the Trofeo de Siracusae tournament in Italy, the U.S. lost to Spain, 7-1, and Italy, 6-3. “Some of the players in the team bring with them their old [habits],” Rudic said. “We don’t have good concentration in tournaments. We play one game good, one bad. We don’t have constant play. We have to work on this. It’s games experience. I don’t know if this year we can change the program too much, but next year we will have a good program. I expect in the next year we will grow.”

Klatt also believes Rudic’s methods will pay off. “We actually have a relatively young group,” he said, “and the returners are dedicated water polo players, so it’s not difficult for them to get motivated. And the young guys want a shot to play for probably the best coach in the world. We want an opportunity to see how good we can be.”

Blessing in Disguise

Finishing fourth at this year’s U.S. figure skating championships might prove to be the best thing that happened to Michael Weiss.

Weiss, twice the U.S. champion and twice a world bronze medalist, was hampered by a broken foot and missed the cutoff for the world championships. Instead of moping, he used the free time to select the music and choreography he will use in competitions leading up to the Salt Lake City Winter Games.

“My motivation factor now that I wasn’t on the team last year is higher than maybe it would have been if I had cruised through the year,” said Weiss, who will start his season at the Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, in September.

Musically, he’s playing it safe. He will skate his short program to “Malaguena,” and his long program to a medley of music by Puccini. His theory is judges like classical pieces, which aren’t controversial.

“No Van Halen or AC/DC this year,” he said. “You don’t need to make anybody angry that you don’t need to.”

Irina Slutskaya, second to Michelle Kwan at this year’s world championships, will also start her season at the Goodwill Games. She too will skate to classical music, with “Serenade” by Schubert for her short program and “Tosca” by Puccini for her long program.

“I am pushing more for my artistic marks,” said Slutskaya, who hasn’t decided whether to try the triple-triple-triple combination she attempted--with mixed results--at the world meet. “When you lose something, of course, you are crying. But I understand, it’s sport, and I came home and watched worlds and try to find my mistakes and what I need to change. I want to do some interesting things.”

He Still Has Some Jump

Former triple jump world-record holder Willie Banks, raking the pit for the triple jump while coaching at an all-comers meet in Long Beach a few weeks ago, wondered why “some old guy” was so excited after chugging down the runway and taking flight.

When the jumper explained he was 45 and had just set a masters age-group record in the triple jump for 45- to 49-year-olds, Banks was amazed--and intrigued. He decided to put on his spikes again and see what he could do at the same age, after a nine-year hiatus.

After losing some weight, Banks entered the San Diego Assn. USA Track and Field open and masters championships. He feared he might look bad--”At first I thought I should go from the high school board just to make sure I made it to the pit,” he said--but jumped 47 feet 8 3/4 inches. That beat the record of 46 feet 8 1/4 inches the “old guy,” Dave Quick, set three weeks earlier, and made Banks the USATF’s athlete of the week.

“When I get out of the hospital,” he joked, “I will tell you the rest of the story.”

Banks’ 1985 world record was 58 feet 11 1/2 inches, still the U.S. outdoor record. The current world record is 60 feet 1/4 inch, set by Jonathan Edwards of Britain in 1995.

Here and There

Elizabeth Jackson set a U.S. record in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase last week at a three-way team meet in Glasgow, Scotland. Jackson’s time of 9 minutes 48.72 seconds beat the 9:49.41 set by Lisa Nye at the U.S. championships last month. Team USA defeated Britain and Russia.

Sydney platform diving gold medalist Laura Wilkinson, who had surgery in November to repair three broken bones in her right foot, will return to competition Aug. 7 at the U.S. outdoor diving championships in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. . . . German wrestler Alexander Leipold, who was stripped of his Sydney gold medal in the 167 1/2-pound weight class after testing positive for nandrolone, had his appeal of the decision heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week. He will learn the result July 17. Leipold, a five-time medalist at the world level, denied using performance-enhancing drugs after his urine sample measured 20 nanograms of nandrolone per milliliter of urine, 10 times the limit. The gold went to Brandon Slay of the U.S.

Only 215 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.