Klatt now has passion for coaching

Standing on the pool deck at the USA Water Polo National Training Center in Los Alamitos, Dan Klatt is unassuming.

He wears a visor, T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Sunglasses cover his eyes, and he smiles from time to time.

But looking closer, there’s something about the blue Team USA visor. On the side, “DK 9” is sewn in.

It is left-over from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, where Klatt was a member of the United States national team.

“These are visors that my parents got made for our entire Olympic team when I was playing,” said Klatt, 28, who lives in Costa Mesa. “It’s amazing how much stuff you acquire over those years of playing and coaching, how many piles of USA T-shirts and shorts and sweatsuits and robes you have. I had to do a major spring cleaning not too long ago, really get rid of some of the stuff.

“I had to quit living the dream; it’s someone else’s now.”

But Klatt’s new dream is helping others to live that dream. The former UC Irvine water polo player, who coaches women’s water polo at his alma mater, is also an assistant coach for the U.S. junior national team at the 2007 FINA Men’s Junior World Championships.

The 24-team tournament for players 20-and-under begins today at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, as well as on the campus of Long Beach State.

Back in Klatt’s playing days, kids from California had to go a little bit further away for tournaments like these. Klatt played in the Junior Worlds exactly 10 years ago, 1997, in Havana, Cuba.

“Obviously, I had a great experience as a USA water polo player,” Klatt said. “I’m very appreciative of that, what I received and the growth in this program. I look on the faces of these guys and I see the same ambition that I had.”

But Klatt, originally from Fresno before starring at UCI, is no newbie to coaching. He started coaching girls’ water polo at Foothill High in Santa Ana in 1999, a job that opened up to him through coaching for the SoCal Water Polo Club, based in Tustin.

At the same time, he was standing out for the Anteaters under legendary coach Ted Newland. A two-time All-American in water polo, Klatt also stood out in swimming. His best marks of 20.51 seconds in the 50-meter freestyle and 45.00 in the 100 meters are both fourth on the UCI all-time list.

And, like most Anteaters players, he participated on Newland’s team for the Newport Water Polo Foundation. Klatt helped Newport win the club title in 2002.

Quite a full plate for Klatt, who said he wasn’t really expecting to be Foothill’s co-head coach while still competing at UCI. Still, the experience was invaluable.

“I really fell in love with coaching there at Foothill,” he said. “I decided that’s what I wanted to do and was passionate about. We were a very successful team; I was fortunate to have some very dedicated athletes.”

But in 2003, after four CIF Southern Section Division I titles, Klatt walked away from coaching at Foothill. It was time for Klatt, who was a member of the U.S. national team, to prepare for the Olympics.

“It was really a dream come true, a dream I realized under Coach Newland,” Klatt said. “I can’t really say that I thought [the Olympics] was a reality when I got to college. He really got that brewing inside my head, that it was a possibility for me. And, I had trained with the national team from 1996 through the 2000 Olympics. I was a young player and mainly a practice player, but that experience really helped me develop. [Former Corona del Mar High water polo coach and current Stanford men’s coach] John Vargas was coaching the team, and he allowed me opportunity to be out there.”

Klatt and four of his former Anteater teammates — Omar Amr, Ryan Bailey, Jeff Powers and Genai Kerr — were all on that Olympic team in Athens, which finished in seventh place. Klatt said being at the Olympics was special, but another great memory was earlier that summer at the 2004 World League Finals in Long Beach.

“We played in front of one of the biggest crowds to ever watch a U.S. game on American soil,” Klatt said. “There was about 5,500 people here watching our games against Spain and Greece. We lost both in a shootout, but it was a really exciting feeling to have that support here to send you off into the Olympics.

“Any time you get that feeling that there’s a group of people that care about water polo and are excited for you, that’s something special. You don’t get that that often in our country and our sport.”

Klatt continued to care deeply about water polo. Just weeks after coming back from the Olympics, he took on a new challenge: coaching at UCI.

Three years later, the Anteaters women’s water polo team is coming off a season where it went 19-13 and finished seventh at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships, the best in the program’s history.

“It’s a building process, just like our entire school is building itself up to be nationally recognized,” Klatt said. “We’ve stepped up each year and gotten better each year. It’s exciting. This next year will be the first year that everyone on the team is a player that I recruited and brought in. I’m pretty excited about that opportunity and continuing in the future.”

Excited, too, about the Junior Worlds which start today. One of the players on the squad, J.W. Krumpholz, has been coached by Klatt for years through the SoCal Club, the U.S. junior national team and Foothill High. Krumpholz now plays at USC, where he’s headed into his sophomore year.

“[Klatt’s] definitely taught me a lot when it comes to international water polo,” Krumpholz said. “He’s a great guy. He’s been a big help and I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.”

Klatt said he’s just glad to give back to a program, and a sport, that has given him so much. He said to look out for his younger sister, too. Kelsey Klatt, 16, who swims for Sunnyside High in Fresno and with the Fresno Dolphins club team, has qualified for the Olympic swimming trials.

“She’s actually a very good water polo player too, but I know the swim coaches will steal her away when it’s time to go away to college,” Dan Klatt said. “She’s just too darn fast. I’m very proud of her, she’s a good kid. A much better kid than I ever was, that’s for sure.”

Despite remaining in excellent shape, Klatt no longer plays competitive water polo.

His future remains in coaching, and he’s just fine with that.

“I will not lie and say that I don’t miss playing a great deal,” Klatt said. “But I fell in love with coaching; there’s just nothing better. I sleep well at night because I know I have an active and important role in these kids’ lives, helping them be what they want to be.

“As much as I miss playing, it’s a better feeling than playing, to be able to help kids achieve their goals and see the look on their face when they’ve succeeded.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].