UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Harvey a Driving Force of the Water Polo Team

IRVINE —  Five years ago, Julian Harvey jumped into the Laguna Hills High School pool every afternoon for water polo practice, only to watch his team slowly sink into the deep end of lost causes.

At the time, Laguna Hills was not a water polo power. Unlike some schools, the team did not benefit from feeder programs or booster clubs, and it didn’t get much support from the student body. This, and the team’s generally apathetic nature, frustrated Harvey to no end.

“We had a very bad program, a very weak program,” Harvey said. “The exposure wasn’t there and neither was the motivation. I’d watch the other teams play, get excited. We were, well . . . low key.”

Now Harvey is one of the top players for UC Irvine, a perennial power and currently the nation’s second-ranked team.

The Anteaters (23-6 overall, 7-2 in the Big West Conference) will travel to Indianapolis next week for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. water polo championships Nov. 24-26. Irvine, which has competed in 17 of the previous 20 NCAA championship tournaments, has finished in the top five 15 times and won the title in 1970 and 1982.

Harvey, a fifth-year senior and a member of the U.S. national team, is UCI’s second-leading scorer with 71 goals; senior Tom Warde leads with 91. Harvey and Warde share the “hole man” position, similar to the center in basketball.

Warde, who has been friends with Harvey since the two were 9-year-old junior lifeguards at Huntington Beach, said: “In high school, Julian was the whole team. Now that he’s with a winning program, he’s able to get fired up. He’s came a long way, but he’s always been a good player.”

Good enough to be invited, as a high school senior, to a youth development camp sponsored by United States Water Polo, the national governing body. It was at the camp that Harvey learned what winning water polo was all about.

“The quality of the players was better, the caliber was way up there,” Harvey said. “Everything was more intense.”

When Harvey brought back what he had learned, namely the camp’s conditioning drills, to his high school team, few were interested. “My coach thought I was out in left field and (the players) wanted to go play their video games or something,” he said.

Tustin Coach Boyd Philpot, a former All-American at UC Irvine, was one of the camp’s directors. He said Harvey stood out immediately.

“Since his team didn’t make the playoffs, no one knew about him except people in his league,” Philpot said. “But when he came down here, I called (Irvine Coach Ted) Newland. I said this kid is strong, talented and motivated . . . a diamond in the rough.”

A year later, Harvey, who had originally planned to attend Saddleback College, ended up at Irvine. “When I first heard about Irvine I said, ‘Irvine? What’s Irvine?’ ” he said. Harvey learned soon enough.

Coach Newland runs one of the nation’s toughest water polo programs. Try 1,200 sit-ups every morning, five days a week.

“It was definitely culture shock when I got there,” Harvey said. “You never get used to waking up at 5:30.”

But Harvey excelled, becoming the team’s only freshman to play in 1985. At the NCAA championships that year, Harvey gained valuable experience, playing nearly an entire game when one of the team’s upperclassmen fouled out.

Although Harvey said the transition from high school to college play was a shock, Newland disagreed.

“I think, to me, he always wanted to be good, and so consequently, I think he knew what it would take,” Newland said. “He’s always been an intense player, he’s a very intense person. It’s what he wanted. He was looking for that.”

Harvey agreed.

“In high school, there wasn’t a lot of drive,” Harvey said. “But I’m definitely driven to win the NCAAs. That’s something we (seniors) have never done. To win it would be everything.”

And this time, Harvey has 11 teammates that share his desire.

The Irvine women’s cross-country team travels to Annapolis, Md., for Monday’s NCAA championships with the highest hopes in the team’s history.

Though the Anteaters’ national ranking dropped from seventh to 12th after finishing second to Washington in the NCAA Region 8 meet at Fresno last Saturday, Coach Vince O’Boyle says the Anteaters are capable of placing much higher. Irvine has competed in the national championships twice, with its best finish--eighth--coming in 1987.

“Getting to nationals has been a common goal for us all year,” O’Boyle said. “That dream is now becoming reality. My dream is that this team can place in the top six or top five.”

Junior Buffy Rabbitt led Irvine in the regional meet by winning the individual title, becoming the first Irvine woman to do so. Rabbitt, who as a freshman became Irvine’s first female cross-country All-American in 1987, was about three strides behind the leader, USC’s Amy Goodwin, with 300 yards to go.

That’s when O’Boyle said the right thing to Rabbitt. “I said, ‘Buf! Make two quick strides and catch her!’ ” O’Boyle said. Rabbitt did, and passed Goodwin.

Said Rabbitt: “I thought, ‘Well, I’m right here, I might as well try.’ When Vince told me to go, I tried to kick for dear life. . . . I was very surprised.”

Anteater Notes

The women’s volleyball team, which plays host to Fresno State Saturday in its final Big West match this season, is led by senior Ali Wood with 455 kills. Irvine is 17-13 overall and 5-11 in the Big West, but Coach Mike Puritz said he hopes the NCAA selection committee will consider his team for a playoff bid. . . . Former Anteater tennis standout Mike Briggs recently returned from a month of competition in Hawaii, where he played four tournaments on Oahu, Maui and Kona. In the past week, he won the Masters Week tournament and earned 17 points in the Assn. of Tennis Professionals’ ratings. According to his pro coach, Dave Heffern, Briggs--who leaves for a tournament in San Paulo, Brazil, on Dec. 4--will probably move up from 460 to 350 in the world rankings. . . . Basketball Coach Bill Mulligan on the good and bad state of Anteater hoops: “We’re encouraged. We see a lot of positive things. I’m trying not to dwell on the negatives.” And: “We’ve spent four weeks practicing, but we still have guys who don’t know what we’re doing.”