Morgan Hill resident ends 23-year coaching hiatus and leads
Masters water polo team to national championship
Morgan Hill – Lee Walton was on a 23-year break from coaching water polo when his friend asked him to coach a Masters water polo team.
It took a little convincing for Walton before he eventually agreed.
But for a former alternate to the U.S. Olympic team, a national title winning coach for San Jose State and a coach for teams in Australia and Puerto Rico, the arm twisting was minimal.
“One of my former players was being inducted into the (San Jose State) Hall of Fame,” Walton said. “While we were having dinner, (some former players) asked ‘Why don’t you come down and coach us at the Masters?'”
He agreed.
Walton just couldn’t bring himself away from the sport that he has loved for more than a half century – one room of his house is adorned with pictures of past players and lined with trophies from past victories.
Among those pictures are a handful of his 25 players he coached to All-American status, including Bruce Hobbs, who earned the honors in high school and college, both under Walton’s watch.
The former players who are now returning to Walton said they are excited to reunite with their coach.
“I enjoy Lee because he is clear in his instructions,” said Bob Likins, who played for Walton from 1965 to 1968. “He is a great kind of teacher in his attitude and skill about him. He wants to communicate how to improve your play. He recognizes that our capacity has changed. He has us do things within our capacity.”
Walton has been involved with water polo since 1953 when he was looking for a sport to replace football after an accident.
He said that he was hoping to play in a sport that could potentially take him to the Olympics, something that football wouldn’t do, so he decided to join water polo and quickly fell in love with the sport.
After graduating from San Jose State, Walton moved on to the San Francisco Olympic Club, through which he qualified as an alternate to the U.S. Olympic team in 1956.
Walton, who majored in physical education, went on to coach swimming and water polo at Washington High School in Fremont.
While at Washington, Walton needed players to fill his squad, so he went to local schools and asked the principals to have a few of the kids meet with him. Walton took special notice of the children’s hands and feet when evaluating their potential to play the sport.
“I looked to see if their hands and feet were big for their size,” Walton said. “If they grew into their hands and feet, they could be good players. Out of that group, three became collegiate All-Americans.”
Walton moved on in 1961 to coach San Jose State, where he led the squad to a national championship in 1968 and three consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances from 1970 through 1972.
He was inducted into the San Jose State Hall of Fame twice, once as a player and most recently as a coach in 2003.
Walton now coaches the Nor Cal Alumni, a 55 and older squad of 24 men ranging in ages from 55 to 63, about half of whom he coached while at San Jose State.
Steve Hamman, who played for Walton for two years at San Jose State, said he, along with a few others, approached Walton with the idea to coach for the Masters team, which will have an international tournament in the Bay Area in August.
“With Masters being at Stanford, we thought that it would be a wonderful idea to get Lee to be our coach and relive old glory days,” Hamman said. “It’s proved to be a lot of fun to be coached by Lee again. My memories of him are still the same.”
Hamman, who won the Most Valuable Player award at the national tournament, was an All-American at San Jose State in 1971 and is a member of both the U.S.A. Water Polo Hall of Fame and the San Jose State Hall of Fame. He said he was never a strong swimmer, but credited his success to strong coaching by Walton.
“If you talk to my teammates, they will make fun of how I swim,” Hammon said. “But it doesn’t bother me. I do what I’ve got to do.”
The Masters team traveled to San Diego in June, where it took first in a four-team division in the national championship.
Hamman said he remembers a coach who had pushed him so hard to make him better. He also said that Walton knew when he needed to be a coach and when to just let the players go.
“The man is real competitive,” Hamman said. “When I played for him, he wore me out. He demanded an awful lot out of (the team). He tried to get us to do things that were impossible, or at least we thought were impossible. … During the quarter (breaks), we would be looking at him for words of wisdom, but his feeling was at that point he has done all coaching he can do and it was time for us to make our decisions.”
Walton’s work with Hamman launched him to a spot on the U.S. water polo team, which could have gone to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were it not for President Jimmy Carter’s decision to boycott the games.
Hamman, Walton and the rest of the water polo squad will be competing in the 11th Annual World Masters Championships at Stanford, where they could be taking on teams from as far away as Europe.
Walton said the competition will be tough, especially if a European team makes the trip.
“I expect two or three teams from Europe to come over,” Walton said. “Those teams will be a challenge, because if you’re making the trip all the way from Europe, you’re coming to play.”
