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Dante Dettamanti combined

Bob Murphy: [0:02] Hello again, everybody! Bob Murphy here, and I am sitting in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains, the vineyards of the little old winemaker, Dante Dettamanti. We're going to talk about water polo ultimately, but God! I'm looking at some Pinot Noir over there and some Chardonnay down there. You're a winemaker, pal! Tell them about it.

Dante Dettamanti: [0:29] Well, when I retired from Stanford three years ago, I decided I wanted to become more involved in growing grapes and making wine. I was doing it actually my last eight or nine years at Stanford as a part-time thing just as a hobby. Now I'm into it, and it keeps me busy, keeps me occupied, and I love it. I'm outdoors amongst the trees and beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains. [0:54] We're growing Pinot and Chardonnay grapes. Oh, about right now I'm making about 100 cases of wine a year and going to increase that. I just planted 1, 000 new vines of Pinot, and I'll be making 300 or 400 cases a year as...

Murphy: [1:09] You don't mind being on the other side of that. You'll have an occasional little sip of that Chardonnay, won't you? [laughs]

Dettamanti: [1:15] Yeah, I've been known to, but I only drink wine with dinner. Or with food. I haven't started drinking it for breakfast yet, but a little lunch and dinner once in a while.

Murphy: [1:30] Well, Dante and I have been friends a long, long time. He coached for 25 years and all kinds of success at Stanford in the wonderful sport of water polo that goes way, way back. We are just going to reminisce. We're recording this in September of the year 2005. When you listen to this, who knows? [1:52] But Dante, you retired just with a fabulous record at Stanford. You have to be so proud of that. You're in the Stanford Hall of Fame. A lot of your players are in the Stanford Hall of Fame. Water polo goes way back. Gosh! You go way, way back to some of those fellows...

[2:08] I knew Austin Clapp when he lived up at Searsville Lake! I mean way, way back when, and the game was played back in the thirties. It is not a new game. A lot of people think it is.

Dettamanti: [2:17] Well, people don't realize it, but it is the oldest Olympic team sport. It was introduced in the early 1900s, and back then the Olympic Games were all individual sports. They were running, swimming, throwing, and that sort of thing. Before volleyball, before soccer, and before all the other team sports, water polo was introduced in the early 1900s. [2:41] And we have a long history of it at Stanford. Wally O'Connor, the big name, was a three-time Olympian, was the flag bearer in the Olympics in the twenties. In those days you swam and you played water polo. You did two sports. p.2

[3:04] Kids still do both sports in high school and in grammar school. But now you get into college you pretty much go either swimming or water polo. Although, I've had some excellent swimmers that have played water polo, including Pablo Morales who was a gold medal winner and a world record holder in the 100 butterfly. He played water polo for me at Stanford. And I've had a few others, but once they get into college, they do one or the other.

[3:28] But we have a tremendous history. It became an official NCAA sport with an NCAA Championship in 1969. Since then we have had tremendous success at Stanford. The Pac-10 teams are usually the top of the country at the college level. In the last 29 years Stanford has played in the NCAA Championship game in 18 of those 29 years, which is just an amazing statistic.

Murphy: [4:06] Oh, that is. Yeah.

Dettamanti: [4:08] I'm pretty sure that's better than any other school in the country.

Murphy: [4:11] When you go back in history you find Austin in 1932, and you find Ted Wiget both in the Stanford Hall of Fame. And Ernie Bransten, of course, was the long time swim coach and had remarkable swimming teams. [4:27] I knew Ernie, as a matter of fact, when I was just a little kid. I'm not sure whether he was involved in water polo or whether they had a separate program. But in those days, you're exactly right. The swimmers' water polo was like an off-season sport.

Dettamanti: [4:39] That's right. Ernie had the title of a swimming and water polo coach, but he was more of a diving coach. People don't realize that. He produced some world-class divers.

Murphy: [4:51] Pete Desjardins.

Dettamanti: [4:52] Right.

Murphy: [4:52] Clarence Pinkston.

Dettamanti: [4:53] But then he concentrated more on swimming, and he had other people doing the water polo for him. [laughs] I have an interesting picture of Ernie.

Murphy: [5:06] Al White. How about Al White?

Dettamanti: [5:07] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Murphy: [5:07] There's another Olympian. I knew Al White, too. He dove into his sixties! He dove into his sixties!

Dettamanti: [5:13] Yeah, that's amazing.

Murphy: [5:15] Oh, yeah. Excuse me for interrupting.

Dettamanti: [5:16] That's OK. p.3

Murphy: [5:17] It popped into the head here. A lot of stuff pops out, but not much pops in. [laughter]

Dettamanti: [5:22] Well, in those days, again, if you swam you also played water polo at the college level. In fact when I went to college, I went to U. C. Davis, and I did both sports. Jim Gaughran, who was a coach here for years, did both sports. He actually played in the Olympics in water polo, and he was a long time swimming and water polo coach. [5:46] Most of the coaches that were here did both sports for years until Art Lambert came in 1973, and that was when most of the colleges started splitting up the coaching responsibilities. Then they had one coach for swimming and one coach for water polo.

Murphy: [6:06] You know, it was interesting. As we said we're recording this in September of 2005, and it was just a week ago that U. C. Davis defeated Stanford in football. People aren't going to forget that no matter when this is heard. No matter when this is listened to, people are still going to remember that the Aggies beat Stanford at Stanford Stadium. Your old school. [6:28] You're on both sides of what is now quite a rivalry I suppose. They brought between 8, 000 and 10, 000 people down from Davis, and it was a celebration that went on into the next morning. It was really something.

Dettamanti: [6:40] It's very interesting. When I went to Davis in the early sixties, we had 2, 000 students. That was the first year they had more students than acres. The school had 1, 800 acres, and we had 2, 000 students. [6:54] Back then in football they were the doormat of the league. They were in the Far Western Conference, and they played schools like Sacramento State, Humboldt State, Chico State, and schools like that. They were the doormat of the league.

[7:06] As the school got bigger and bigger, their football program really took off. They were Division II champions for years and years, but now they're in Division I and did quite well against Stanford. That's for sure.

Murphy: [7:18] Dante, your first jobs were down at Occidental, at Oxy, and UCSB Santa Barbara. That catapulted you into a long 25-year stay at Stanford. Talk to the folks about that.

Dettamanti: [7:30] Right. Well, I was actually an engineering major in college. My fifth year at UC Davis I wasn't eligible anymore to play water polo or swim, so I became a student assistant coach. I liked it so much I said, "Aw, the heck with this. I don't want to be an engineer." So I went in the military for a couple of years, got out, and then got my Masters at UCLA in exercise physiology. [7:53] From there I became the swimming and water polo coach at Occidental College, and I was actually a faculty member there. I taught classes, and not only P. E. classes but academic classes as well.

Murphy: [8:07] I'm trying to put the years together. Was Payton around then in those days?

Dettamanti: [8:09] No, but Payton... p.4

Murphy: [8:11] Pretty close.

Dettamanti: [8:12] Yeah. Dixon Farmer was actually there at the time as a coach, and Steve Haas was another great track runner. Occidental was famous for its track and field program.

Murphy: [8:25] Well, Payton had a lot to do with that.

Dettamanti: [8:26] That's right. So I coached there for four years, and when I started we were kind of the doormat of the league and I just recruited like mad. We had no scholarship money, little, tiny school. We ended up, my last couple of years there, we were league champions in swimming and water polo and I was coaching both sports at the time. [8:49] Went from there to UC Santa Barbra and stayed there for three years and built their program up to the point where we were in the top four in the nation in water polo and that's when I split from swimming. I decided I just wanted to coach water polo. We had another guy that wanted to coach swimming so he took that over.

[9:11] We did very well there, at that time, at Stanford. Art Lambert was the coach. They had just won the '76 NCAA Championships in water polo and he decided he wanted to concentrate more on coaching volleyball. He was also a volleyball-

Murphy: [9:27] All right, we're back with Dante Dettamanti. Dante, we're talking about your career. You coached at Oxy, you coached UC Santa Barbra and then came the invitation to Stanford. I remember, when I was in school, Tom Haney wasn't too crazy about water polo. So, the sport was active but there was no real emphasis on it. [9:48] Then when Jim Goren - Jim Goren was a great swimmer. He was also a great water polo player. When he took over he really pushed water polo. He loved water polo. And, of course, Art Lambert came along, then you. Water polo has a dynasty at Stanford now. Talk about that. Let's go back to where we were.

Dettamanti: [10:09] Well, in those days at Stanford, Haney was the swimming coach and water polo coach but he just wanted to concentrate on swimming. So he actually dropped the sport of water polo for a few years. [10:23] It did come back when Jim Goren, who graduated from Stanford and was actually a lawyer, had his law degree and was working for the state attorney general's office, decided he wanted to go into coaching. So he took the program over, both swimming and water polo, and started the polo program again.

[10:47] Jim was excellent in both sports when he was in college and he was actually an Olympian in water polo. He played in, I think, the Rome Olympics, or it was the one before that. So then he took over. Then it came the time when we decided that they were going to split swimming and water polo coaching responsibilities and Art Lambert took over as the coach of water polo. And that was the same time that I was at UC Santa Barbra.

I was also a swimming and water polo coach. I gave up the swimming part of it in Santa Barbara and just concentrated on water polo. In my last year at Santa Barbra and Lambert's last year at Stanford, we actually played each other in the NCAA p.5

Championships. Stanford beat us, that was [inaudible 00: [11:18] 11:33] , they beat us by one goal and shortly after that Stanford won the championship.

[11:42] Art Lambert decided he wanted to move on and coach women's volleyball. He gave up the job. I was good friends with him. He gave me a call, he said, "You know anybody that's interested in being the coach here at Stanford?"

Murphy: [11:55] Me.

Dettamanti: [11:55] Yeah, and I thought about it. That's right, exactly. I said, "Well, I think I would." I hated to leave Santa Barbra; it's a wonderful, wonderful area down there. But I thought we would have a little more success here at Stanford. I interviewed for the job. Joe Ritz was the athletic director at the time and they offered me the job. I came up here in 1977 and stayed for 25 years. [12:26] We had tremendous success. I think the thing I'm most proud of is the consistency of the program, that we were always in the hunt for NCAA championship. In the 25 years that I was here, we were in the top four in the nation, I think, 20 of those 25 years. We played in the championship game in 14 of those 25 years with eight championships and six second place finishes.

Murphy: [12:57] Dante, before we go any further, talk about the change in facilities during your run at Stanford. Rather dramatic, rather dramatic.

Dettamanti: [13:07] Well, even before I came to Stanford, when I was a graduate student at UCLA, I was a graduate assistant student in water polo. We came up and played in the old pool at Stanford. It was a 25 yard, tiny little pool where the men's gym used to be. [13:25] That's where they used to allow nude swimming at noon time, for me only though, they didn't allow women in there. Nude swimming.

Murphy: [13:33] That used to be pretty attractive for folks in Hoover tower. A lot of them would go up there with binoculars and it was rather entertaining.

Dettamanti: [13:41] Yeah, to look down at these guys. In fact, there's a story of a professor that, the pool was closed for a water polo game and he walked out in the nude, right in the middle of the game. Everyone started cheering for him and he quickly turned around and ran back into the locker room. [14:02] Then, deGuerre pool was built and Jim Goren actually designed deGuerre pool. That was built, I believe, in 1973 was when they finished deGuerre pool. The pool for water polo immediately was too small because we changed from 25 yards to a 30 meter course.

Murphy: [14:26] International, because it's an international event.

Dettamanti: [14:28] Exactly, and so we had to move over to the recreation pool. So, the old stadium pool where water polo was supposed to be held became outdated almost immediately. Then, my last few years at Stanford, the Avery family came along and decided they were going to build a world class facility for swimming and water polo. [14:54] And Bryan Avery actually played for me and Burt Avery, his father, was the president of the Stanford Water Polo Foundation when I first came to Stanford. So, the p.6

Avery family donated the major gift for the new facility. It's now the Avery Aquatic Center. It's one of the most beautiful facilities in the world.

Murphy: [15:17] Nothing like it. It's beautiful.

Dettamanti: [15:19] It's amazing. I've seen pools everywhere in the world and there's really nothing like it.

Murphy: [15:23] How about this, I always say, they should have the America's cup, they ought to bring the big boats in.

Dettamanti: [15:29] Oh yeah, they could.

Murphy: [15:31] But they like the first 50 meter pool so much they built another one. How about that?

Dettamanti: [15:34] Yeah, exactly. We've got two 50 meter pools one 40 meter pool with a bulk head, so they can play water polo and swim.

Murphy: [15:44] With stands. Perfect.

Dettamanti: [15:44] With a stadium to hold 3, 000 people. Looking right down on the water so they can have a good view of the match. And they have another 30 meter diving pool, all deep, entirely for diving, with a big diving tower and diving boards. It's just a beautiful facility. If we ever held the Olympics in the bay area I'm sure they would use our facility for the Olympic Games.

Murphy: [16:12] Couldn't be anywhere else. Dante, let's talk about records here now. You won eight NCAA championships, you finished second six times and you finished third five times. You were in the top four 20 of 25 years. How do you achieve that kind of success? Can you talk about that? Swimmers, I always thought, are pretty smart guys, they can get into Stanford.

Dettamanti: [16:38] Well, recruiting sure had a lot to do with it. Stanford is such a draw for high school kids and we had initial success in both swimming and water polo and success breeds success. We just kept recruiting and getting better players and stayed consistent at that. [17:03] I think it was combination of the success of the athletic department and the success of the university academically and we were able to attract some pretty good athletes. And most swimmers are pretty good students. They are pretty disciplined.

[17:18] You swim at six o clock in the morning for a couple of hours then you come back in the afternoon for a couple more hours and you are just following a little black line up and down the pool. You become pretty disciplined and they are also disciplined in their studies. So we were able to recruit some pretty good swimmers and water polo players.

Murphy: [17:38] And the Pac-10 is probably the leading conference as far as water polo is concerned. West Coast volleyball, water polo, kind of West Coast games although they have spread across the country now. Both becoming very, very popular. Of course, both p.7

of them internationally very strong and that is where the Olympics come in. [18:00] You had teams 1981 and 1986 undefeated. You were the NCAA coach of the year six times. You were the conference coach nine times. You won about eighty percent of every match, every game you ever played. What a record.

[18:17] International game, water polo, it's become enormous in the Olympics. Can you talk about how the game is grown?

Dettamanti: [18:25] Well, just to show you the quality of our student athletes. We had twelve of my players in twenty five years went on to the Olympic Games and those are just twelve individuals. They played. Several of them played in three Olympics. [18:40] My 1981 team had three Olympians. We had an astronaut on the team, Steve Smith, who is in the hall of fame. And he walked in space and repaired the Hubble telescope. We had out of our eighteen players on the team, six became physicians.

Murphy: [19:08] So, they were going to class?

Dettamanti: [19:10] Oh, yeah, they were. I mean, what a group that was. Three Olympians and all this success. And they have contributed to our Olympic team. Our '84 Olympic team had four Stanford players on it. And we won the silver medal in the '84 Olympics. We won the silver medal again in '88. [19:31] In Seoul, that had four Stanford players in it. So, internationally Stanford has contributed and it just shows you the quality of the athlete that we were attracting to Stanford. They were able to go on and do well at the Olympics game.

[19:48] The latest athlete we had was Tony Azevedo, Tony just graduated this last year and he was on the Olympic team at age seventeen. He was still in high school when he played on our Olympic team.

Murphy: [20:02] As you look back what do you have to say? I mean of all the great players, Tony, maybe not head and shoulders but a head to head of all the rest of them because he was so good, so young, Olympian and just a great player.

Dettamanti: [20:15] He's without a doubt the best player we've ever produced in this country and also the best player we ever had in Stanford. We had some great athletes in Stanford. Tony, I believe, as an all around player is the best and his goal is to play in five Olympic Games. But we've had some other great ones. Wolf Wigo played in three Olympics. Jody Campbell was on three Olympic teams. Guys like that Alan [inaudible 00: [20:36] 20:46] . These are all guys that have played a multiple Olympic teams but they are all Stanford players.

Murphy: [20:53] Dante, as you sit here and we talked and you looked back, my Gosh, you won over 600. You had 600 wins in your coaching career. Only one other guy did that.

Dettamanti: [21:06] And that's Ed Millen from UC Irvine. He is still coaching now. He is in his seventies and he is still coaching so he has been around a long time. And the other that got us in third place, it was Pete Cutino at CAL. p.8

Murphy: [21:21] Pete was a dear friend of ours and that brings up another interesting stat. Only three, and that would be Pete I suppose, over 500.

Dettamanti: [21:30] That's right and Pete was the third one. What a rivalry we had with CAL in those days. Oh, Gosh. And I know Pete for years. I was in high school and Pete was coaching at Oxnard high school and he coached me one year. I knew him when he was in his first years at CAL. [21:46] Then I came to Stanford and we were good friends all the way through. And Pete, when he was at CAL, also won eight NCAA championships. And he and I were tied at the lead. But there were many years there where Stanford was number one and CAL was number two or CAL was number one and Stanford was number two.

[22:08] We played each other four or five times a year. We played each other in the league championships. We played each other in the NCAA championships. We played each other in tournaments and we had a home and away. And of course, we had the Big Splash, which was just a tremendous game the morning of the big game in football.

[22:25] And we always had the traditional game with CAL that morning. We just would pack the place. I mean it was standing room only. People were out tail gating. They would come by and watch the water polo game and it was just packed. In fact, I am surprised the fire marshal hadn't come by and kicked some people out of there. I mean people were hanging from the rafters!

Murphy: [22:48] I love the spirit of water polo. You are going to have to fill the blanks for me but I remember when UCLA was in trouble with water polo, they didn't have a facility. They have to up to the faculty club. They could not get the access to the faculty club and they were just in the verge... Did they drop water polo? Was it Jack Randolf who brought that back? [23:10] I know that the Stanford did a great job turning the golf course over. Who supported the UCLA effort to bring water polo back? Nobody more than Stanford, CAL, USC. There is a great spirit, a great feeling in the game of water polo.

Dettamanti: [23:29] The problem is we don't have a lot of schools playing this sort and we just couldn't afford to lose this school like UCLA which is always one of the top schools in the nation in our sport. We are like gymnastics, like men's volleyball. We don't have a lot of numbers. [23:50] With title nine coming in, NCAA has dropped sports and we have, all of us, have had sports dropped. But water polo, when you only start out with seventy or eighty schools playing and they dropped twenty schools, that really hurt you.

[24:05] If you start out with 300 then it dropped twenty, it is not so bad. It was in our best interests to help UCLA and we want to keep them strong. We could not afford to lose a program like that so we were the forefront. We had golf tournaments to raise money to keep the program going and it is very ironic in that they kept water polo. They brought it back and they dropped swimming, men's swimming.

Murphy: [24:37] All right.There's little rain in the vineyard and you are getting a little nervous now because you don't want rain right now. p.9

Dettamanti: [24:44] That's right. Rain is the worst thing during the harvest. This is harvest time and you don't want to get rain because the grapes do get mildew and they call it bunch rot. Not an attractive name. It doesn't help the grapes at all.

Murphy: [25:00] We don't need that. Well, we are talking about swimming. It has a lot to do with water and then we get a little rain. What's going on here folks? We are not sure. We are sitting outside just enjoying ourselves enormously. [25:14] We'll back up just a little bit here. You'll excuse us folks if we just readjust our recording studio here and we get under a little bit more cover.

[25:25] Dante, internationally. World University Games. That is a magnificent locale for the game of water polo. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Dettamanti: [25:35] Well, the World University Games is like a mini Olympics, but the difference is you have to be a student to participate. But of course back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies the Iron Curtain countries would send their whole national team to compete. [25:56] Whether they were students or not, they'd sign them up for an agricultural class or something and call them students. They were all in their late twenties, some of them in their early thirties. So a lot of countries were sending their best athletes to the World University Games.

[26:13] I was able to coach in 1979 in Mexico City. We had the World University Games, and I had several Stanford players on the team. We trained at high altitude in Colorado Springs to get ready for the high altitude in Mexico, and we won the gold medal.

Murphy: [26:35] You might have learned that from Payton, huh? [laughs]

Dettamanti: [26:36] That's right, yeah. Training at high altitude. That's right. We won the gold medal. It was the first gold medal by a United States team at the international level in the history of our sport in water polo. I think high altitude training certainly helped. We spent about three weeks training in Colorado Springs. [27:06] Back then we only had 11 players on the squad. Now internationally you have 13, and you only start six players. Only nine of these players are field players. Two are goalkeepers, so we only had nine players. Every time a goal was scored, I would sub three players after every goal. That's the only time you can sub.

[27:27] And I would take three out and put three in. Take three out the next time and put three in. I continued that substitution program rotation at Stanford when I was there.

Murphy: [27:38] At Stanford we've got more than 30 sports, men's and women's. I'm not sure that water polo players aren't the best-conditioned athletes of any sport. They have to be to survive.

Dettamanti: [27:56] Yeah, and you're in that water. You're swimming as fast as you can go, sprinting up and down the pool, changing directions. You're trying to just keep your head above water. Some guy's grabbing your suit and pulling you under water and gets on top of you. It's a foul, but people do get away with it because there are only two p.10

referees and 14 people in the water. [28:21] It was even worse when they only had one referee because guys were just great at looking up at the ref to see which direction he was looking. Then they would just gross you and shove you under water. So here you are, you're swimming up and down the pool -

Murphy: [28:33] I think I understand that. [laughs]

Dettamanti: [28:34] Yeah. Well, you're swimming up and down the pool dragging a 200 pound guy along with you. He's just hanging onto you. You have to be in tremendous shape, and then there's a lot of wrestling that goes on, also, besides the swimming part.

Murphy: [28:48] It is a very physical game.

Dettamanti: [28:50] Yeah, very physical.

Murphy: [28:51] Now '79 in Mexico City. A couple of years later you were in Bucharest.

Dettamanti: [28:55] Right. The World University Games again. It's held every two years. In Bucharest we just missed the gold medal by one goal, and we actually lost to Romania. They were the host country. There was a little shenanigans going on there with refereeing, and they were trying to help the Romanians out, I think. But we won the silver, and we had several Stanford athletes on that team, also. [29:25] The University Games have been a good place for us to play and to showcase our University athletes. And again in Romania, other teams would send their complete national teams. We played Yugoslavia. They had their whole national team there. Cuba had their whole national team. Russia had their whole national team, and we were able to beat them.

Murphy: [29:50] These essentially are their Olympic games' teams. It's not going to get any bigger. Weren't you involved in that in 1992 with the national team?

Dettamanti: [29:59] Oh, yes. I was assistant coach for the United States team for two and half years, and the time commitment got to be so tough I decided to give that up. I was the assistant to Bill Barnett. He was the head coach for the Olympic team. I was able to coach at the World Championships and help him out for a few years. [30:22] Then again I was an assistant coach in 2002 with Ratko Rudic. He's from Yugoslavia. He became our Olympic coach here in the United States, and I was able to work with him for a year. That was the year I decided I was going to retire from water polo. I took a big chance, and I announced my retirement before the start of the season...

[laughter]

Dettamanti: [30:51] ...not knowing how we were going to do. But we had Tony Azevedo on the team, so I thought we were going to do pretty well. We ended up winning the championship with Tony, so that was a good way to go out.

Murphy: [31:03] You were in Beijing.

Dettamanti: [31:04] That's right. p.11

Murphy: [31:05] And it's interesting. I was in Beijing this summer. As we said we're talking September 2005. The Big Six Summit Meeting was taking place in Beijing when we were there regarding North Korea and its use of nuclear weapons and that kind of thing. But you were there for other reasons. Enormous big city! What an experience that must have been for you!

Dettamanti: [31:27] Oh, it was fantastic being there. Then we found out while we were there, they had the vote to decide who would host the 2008 Olympic Games and Beijing won. So there was a lot of excitement going on, and there was a lot of celebration going on, too. So we had a lot of fun while we were there, too.

Murphy: [31:44] Well, this is quite an experience to look back over. Let's talk a minute about the overall program. My gosh! You look at, what are we talking about now, 11 great big crystal jars that we have in the Hall of Fame room? [32:00] We had a sponsor for that. It used to be the Sears Cup. When it was the Stanford Cup for so many years, Sears I think lost interest in it. It's the Directors Cup now. The level of excellence that Stanford has reached, I'm not sure that we're not in the golden age of Stanford athletics.

Dettamanti: [32:18] It's amazing when you think about it, that we are the smallest school in the Pac-10. We have 7, 000 undergraduates, and we are consistently at the top in all sports. Like you said we won the Sears Cup for 11 years. That's the top athletic program in the country. And you're competing against the UCLAs, the Nebraskas, all across the country in all sports. [32:49] To win that 11 years in a row for a small school like Stanford, it's just amazing. I think the quality of the academics there really helps to attract athletes and the quality of the athletic program. Our facilities are just fantastic, second to none. We've had good coaching, and we've been able to draw great athletes. It's amazing to me that a school like Stanford can do that.

Murphy: [33:19] Now John Vargas has followed you, and he's picking it up and running with it. I don't know whether you run in water polo, but he's carrying on the tradition that you certainly had a lot to do with establishing. I want you to talk about the other coaches in other sports. I mean Hall of Fame people. [33:37] When we talk about Payton Jordan and we talk about people who have passed through Stanford and what is there now, boy, those people! Mike Montgomery! What he did in basketball! He did the same thing in basketball pretty much what you've done in water polo. Nobody ever expected that anybody could do that at Stanford.

[33:56] Mark Marquess with baseball, Tara VanDerveer in women's basketball, John Tanner doing a great job with women's water polo now. Now the women coming on with water polo, and that is a very physical game for those young ladies to play.

Dettamanti: [34:10] Well to be able to work in that atmosphere with all those great coaches, you are walking down the hall and you are bumping into Bill Walsh. You start talking about different sports and things. You ask his advice about something and he would be able to help you out. [34:25] There is Dick Gould right around the corner. Amazing. Tennis, men's tennis... I don't remember how many championships but it is just an obscene amount of championships that Dick has won. p.12

Murphy: [34:39] Well, and Frank Brennan...

Dettamanti: [34:40] Frank Brennan in women's tennis...

Murphy: [34:41] And then [inaudible 00:34:41] comes along behind Frank and wins three out of the last four national championships. I mean the level of excellence makes everyone, the coaches, a little edgy.

Dettamanti: [34:51] Down at the pool we had Skip Kenny and Richard Quick in the men and women's swimming.

Murphy: [34:57] National champions...

Dettamanti: [34:57] National championships all over the place. Volleyball is just... John Shaw...

Murphy: [35:03] John Dunning...

Dettamanti: [35:04] John Dunning now...It really has been quite a run. I hope we can keep it up. Other schools are looking at us as a model. That is the way they want to fashion their athletic programs.

Murphy: [35:21] Well, you made a move a very long time ago, almost 30 years now, Coach. You came from a wonderful location, a wonderful school, down at UC Santa Barbara and made a decision to come to Stanford. Well, it is not just one chapter of your life, it is several of them, I suppose. You certainly left your mark.

Dettamanti: [35:40] That was probably the best decision I ever made in my life, to come to Stanford. It was tough leaving Santa Barbara because that is a wonderful place to live, but at the time when I came here in 1977, little did I know that I would be here for 25 years and that we would have had the success that we did. Though overall, our athletic program grew during that time too. We had great athletic directors that came in. After Joe Ruetz we had Andy Geiger and then Ted Leland who have really helped to expand the program. It has just been the greatest experience of my life and I do not, for one second, regret or look back and say: [36:04] "Maybe I should have stayed in Santa Barbara". No way.

Murphy: [36:33] Before we close this, Dante, let us run down... We can't name them all because you have had some many outstanding players, so we will talk about those guys that are in the hall of fame. Bergeron, James Bergeron...

Dettamanti: [36:45] Yeah, James Bergeson exactly.

Murphy: [36:47] Bergeson, excuse me.

Dettamanti: [36:48] He has just been inducted into the hall of fame. Was an Olympian in 1982 and a tremendous shooter. He held our school record for number of goals in his career until Tony Azevedo came along. He was a great scorer. p.13

Murphy: [37:06] Mouchawar, you talked about a little bit. A great player.

Dettamanti: [37:09] Alan Mouchawar and also Jody Campbell were both on the same team with Bergeson. Those were the three Olympians on our 1980 and 1981 teams. Tremendous players. Alan Mouchawar came in as a freshman, came off the bench as a freshman. [37:35] We were loosing to Cal in the NCAA championship game. Alan Mouchawar came off the bench, scored three goals to tie the game. Then, in sudden death overtime, he made the pass leading to our winning goal. This kid comes off the bench and he makes the All American Team as a freshman. Coming off the bench! He wasn't even a starter.

Murphy: [37:56] Doug Burke goes into the hall of fame this year. We are talking about 2005 as we are recording this. He was another powerful player.

Dettamanti: [38:03] I had Doug just for two years. He was on the 1976 Championship team with Art Lambert as the coach. Then when I came to Stanford he played for me for two years. He was the one that scored the winning goal in my fist NCAA Championship, in sudden death overtime, against Cal-Berkley. I mean, it was his last call in his collegiate career and what a way to go out: In sudden death overtime. The game is over and he scored the winning goal.

Murphy: [38:35] How about Chris Dorst was about that time too. He was a great player.

Dettamanti: [38:38] I never had a chance to coach Chris but he played on the 1976 team and he graduated the year that I came. He played on the 2004 Olympic Teams. Tremendous goalkeeper as was John Gansel. John Gansel is probably the best goalkeeper we have ever had in this country. He made the decision to go to medical school rather than play on the Olympic Games. [39:10] He became a doctor and I just wonder how we would have done with him as our goalkeeper in the Olympic Team. He never made the Olympic Team because of that but tremendous goalkeeper.

Murphy: [39:20] A Stanford decision, I guess.

Dettamanti: [39:22] Right.

Murphy: [39:24] Do you keep in touch with these guys? Do you hear from some of them?

Dettamanti: [39:27] Oh yeah. I see them. They come back to Stanford once and a while. I see them when we travel, going to different Water Polo games. Some I see quite often. Some still live in this area. A lot of them still live in Southern California. I do run into them once and a while, especially when they are inducted into the hall of fame. I am able to go to that and watch them be inducted.

Murphy: [39:51] Anyone of those guys that never had anything to do with throwing you in the pool? [laughter]

Dettamanti: [39:57] I think everyone threw me in the pool and they loved to do that, I'll tell you. It is like throwing the Gatorade on top of the coach's head when he wins a p.14

football game. That is the tradition. You throw the coach in the pool when you win the championship. They got great pleasure in doing that.

Murphy: [40:12] I have always wondered about that. You expect to win; you expect to get thrown in the pool. So, you do not wear your good watch, you wear interesting shoes that dry out quickly. Do you plan for this?

Dettamanti: [40:26] The timing is important. [laughter]

Dettamanti: [40:30] You are in the championship game, you are getting into the forth quarter and you do not want to start disrobing too soon because the other team might score a couple of goals and all of the sudden... [40:39] But if you have a safe lead and there are two or three minutes left in the game, you slowly start taking your shoes off. You take your watch off, you take your wallet out of your pocket and you prepare for it.

[40:51] You can't take the rest of your clothes off. You still have your pants and your shirt, but you bring a change of clothing although you are afraid that might jinx the team if you...

Murphy: [40:59] You have got to have some confidence.

Dettamanti: [41:00] Yeah, I do. But you always bring a change of clothing just in case. But then, when you know that you absolutely are going to win the game in the forth quarter and there are a few minutes left and you have got a safe lead, then you can start doing all that.

Murphy: [41:16] Now as we close this, Dante, is there anything we have missed? What is it that when you sit down and reflect on such an important, such a long period in your life - What comes to mind?

Dettamanti: [41:29] I made the decision years ago to get out of engineering - that is what my degree is - and going into coaching. At that time, who would have thought that I would end up in Stanford and we would have tremendous success? To be part of the Stanford experience, to be part of the Stanford Athletic Program, is absolutely the greatest experience of my life. I try to carry that on to my grape-growing and wine-making. [42:00] I have got to have good grapes to make good wine, as you have to have good athletes to make a good team. I just had some great, great athletes to work with. The opportunity to be able to work at Stanford with other coaches that have been here throughout the years and the great athletes... It has just been absolutely the greatest experience of my life.

Murphy: [42:26] Fun talking about it Coach.

Dettamanti: [42:28] Thank you.

Murphy: [42:28] This has just been delightful. He did not write the book, but Dante Dettamanti is included in a very flattering way in many, many chapters in that book. Thanks for listening. [cuts off] p.15

[42:43]

Transcription by CastingWords