Fare Thee Well, Coach D!

It seems inconceivable that Dante Dettamanti—insightful, incomparable, insufferable (at times), the one and only “Coach D” who won eight NCAA water polo titles with the Stanford men—will not be on the other end of the phone line for so many of us who cherished his pithy critiques of the sport he adored.

I claim a modest role as hanger-on in the large-than-life tale that was Dante. I would occasionally get an email or a phone call about how wrong I was about whatever polo opinion I had professed. I’d try to reason it out—which was futile because what did I know compared to Coach D’s half a century in the sport? We’d converse a bit as I tried vainly to make my case, then end up on a Dettamanti career highlight such as the wondrous Tony Acevedo, a Cardinal crown jewel bequeathed to John Vargas, Dante’s successor at Stanford. Or a lament, like the 1998 title match which the Cardinal should have won—if not for that damn two-point goal by USC in overtime!

I write now because so many of the folks who loved him will greatly miss all that was Dante. He always conveyed tremendous pride regarding his teams’ success on The Farm, where in the 80’s and 80’s Dante’s boys made Avery Aquatic Center the hub of the U.S. polo universe. And what a time that must have been! It was just before the influx of foreign-born players changed the collegiate game in America; that 1998 loss was on a shot by Marko Pintaric, a native-born Croatian (and current USC men’s and women’s coach) and ushered in the Jovan Vavic era of American polo, one which overshadowed much of what Dante had accomplished.

Dettamanti was touched early by polo greatness; in 1969 he was on Bob Horn’s staff at UCLA when the Bruins were the country’s best. He moved on to Occidental for a brief spell then spent two years in Santa Barbara before jumping to the Stanford job. His move proved noteworthy for the Gauchos; in 1979—now coached by Pete Snyder—the squad that Dante helped assemble rose up and claimed UCSB’s first-ever national championship.

That win didn’t put a dent in the illustrious career Dettamanti was fashioning on The Farm; 1980’s California polo, with UCLA, Cal, UC Irvine and Stanford dominated everyone else, was an unparalleled Golden Age of Polo, with the best-ever assemblage of American coaching talent—Horn for the Bruins, Ted Newland for the Anteaters, Pete Cutino for Cal, and Dante, who beat them all.

I wish I could have been there when Cal and Stanford contested; how did Dettamanti handle Cutino, a towering presence on the pool deck? Would Dante ever back down from a confrontation? I doubt it; now I’ll never have the opportunity to ask.

As it happens, I had been meaning to get in touch with him, to hear what he was up to, what his latest insight were on Stanford or the U.S. men’s team. Dante loved the sport as much as life, and adored sharing his vast knowledge, which he did so generously. Even though I was too briefly touched by Dante’s insights, my life is immeasurably lessened by his loss.