Curious as to who the group thinks are the top high school water polo coaches coaching today (boys and girls programs).
On the boy’s side in 2025, my top 3 in no particular order are:
Ross Sinclair
Brett Ormsby
Tommy Corcoran
All three have not only proven themselves as head coaches at the high school level, but they’ve also built pipelines at the club level so dominant that rivals feel compelled to form super-teams to be able to compete against them.
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I agree these coaches are top and have established powerhouses in recent times. To add to the list:
- Jack Kocur: He has been successful with boys and the girls (recently winning a CIF title when everybody expected MD or OLU to win). He has also been successful with the boys youth and junior national teams. A lot of people don’t want to play Kocur and Oaks in CIF because he’ll always throw a curveball and I think that speaks to the respect other coaches have for him.
- Ivan Buich: Although it’s early into his Santa Margarita tenure I think he has already turned the program inside out and set it on a course for success. Winning a trinity league title in the first year is not bad and although CIF was disappointing for them I believe they performed above expectations. He does have a track record of success at the college level with USC and even won the MPSF title game against UCLA and Adam Wright in 2024 so it can be said he has the experience and know how to succeed at the highest level. It’ll be fun to follow them throughout the club season under whatever team they are and into next years HS season.
- Lucas Reynolds: He basically put CDM back on the map in terms of competing at the highest level. His teams play disciplined and hard nosed water polo and had Newport not been completely loaded I would take CDM as a worthy champion. Next year will be interesting to see what he does seeing as he loses many seniors but expect them to play hard regardless.
As for the girls:
Chris Segesman: I think his track record speaks for itself and I see this year as the time where he will finally push through and win a CIF title.
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I am sure that I overlooking may well-deserved coaches, but on the girls’ side, in alphabetical order, here are the ones hat I have been most impressed with. They have each competed at the top tiers of CIF and have sent an abundance of well-prepared players on to play at the NCAA level.
Ethan Damato: his multiple CIF-SS championships and work with the different National Teams speak for themselves. His Laguna squads were some of the most finely tuned teams that I have seen.
Jack Kocur: I have not seen his girls teams play as much as the others, but what he was able to accomplish last year was something else against the heavily favored OLu and Mater Dei teams.
John Roemer: he has been successful wherever he has coached, most recently at Miramonte and the 680 club.
Chucky Roth: his book of work at San Marcos and SBCC is tremendous. We are gong to lose a great coach when he retires.
Chris Segesman: his success with the boys has been top shelf and is impossible to ignore. He has not had the same success with the girls, despite having some very talented teams over the years, but I think that Mater Dei will win it all this year.
Ross Sinclair: the success that he has had with both the boys and girls teams has been outstanding. All of the girls that come out of Newport certainly know how to play the game well.
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Bryan Lynton, I believe 7 CIF Championships thru Murrieta Valley.
Oooops, 2 more with Boys or 9
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I agree with the first 3 listed for boys, Ross, Bret, Tommy are legit. I especially like Ross and Tommy as coaches and to have around kids. I might add Kreuscamp for Norcal with a consistently top perfroming team, Grover may be on his way as well given a few more years. The funny thing with this list is we look at it from a water polo lense, but if looking at it from a “ this is someone we want around our kids to help shape them as people” perspective. The list is much deeper, and IMHO more important.
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Define “top”…
Successful in winning games, medals, championships?
Or good human beings who also coach and are committed to developing young people and teams, for the game of life?
I ask because in our sport sometimes the two intersect, but more frequently it’s one or the other…
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I would say a combination of the following: Skilled coach with proven success, dedicated to developing players and building strong character, good human.
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IMO - A significant component on judging a HS coaches merit would be the success of the program versus the local youth club success while also factoring in geographic transfer levels (non-local athlete influx).
Basically - how many players on the team grew up within 10 miles of the school and how good were those athletes before they got to HS?
In SoCal HS polo I would look at the schools that have developed talent from the neighborhood and give credit accordingly to those coaches.
For instance -I don’t know anything about Yucaipa. But that program has done well despite its geographic location. Maybe they recruited out of its geographic district (again I don’t know). But the youth club program isn’t performing at the same level as the HS. Something about that indicates good HS coaching to me.
In terms of results I would think that Sacred Hearts Brian Kreutzkamp belongs on the list, top results, runs arguably the best highschool boys tournament in the country, and has had numerous standouts goto NCAA.
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To build on this, I would also look at programs who are consistently making runs in the lower divisions without much “talent.” Coaches that can consistently contend with minimal or no club players I think also serves some credit.
To me that’s building on what you said looking at homegrown talent.
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You might very well be right about it. Or, in some cases, the best hs players play for a bigger club, which might explain why the local (smaller) “youth club program isn’t performing at the same level as the HS”.
By this metric you’d have to look at the coaches at Laguna Beach. Enrollment is limited to residents (less than 900 students), top athletes often leave to privates, and they are consistently competitive with schools that are double or even triple their student body.
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100% correct on the boy’s side. Laguna’s coach is phenomenal, a great communicator and a nice guy. This is coming from an opponent’s perspective as they smashed my kid’s team this year.
I dont know if i agree with excluding coaches who have transfers or are at a private school and thus need to recruit. The transfer game is almost everywhere, private school coaches don’t have a choice and need to recruit, public school coaches can’t legally say no to viable transfers and those happen more often now. They re simply doing thier job, lets judge them on the other factors, effectiveness, record and are they great guys.
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There are too many good high school water polo coaches to list all of them here. If I had to choose one boys’ coach, it would be Sacred Heart’s Brian Kreutzkamp. Some of the factors I considered when making these fine distinctions:
- A coach’s longevity
- Where applicable, whether the coach was successful at every stop during his coaching career
- A coach’s won/loss record
- How a coach’s teams performed during CIF championship tournaments
- A coach’s ability to recognize, evaluate, motivate, and develop talented players
- Whether a coach’s teams consistently play as well as or better than the teams’ talent level would have predicted
- Whether the coach’s players understand and fulfill their roles and know what is expected of them
- Whether a coach is an excellent game-day coach and is able to make adjustments on the fly
- Whether a coach usually or consistently outcoaches the opponent’s coach
- Whether a coach’s teams wilt under pressure or when faced with adversity
- Whether a coach’s teams exercise good sportsmanship
- Whether a coach runs a clean program
- Whether a coach is able to place his better players in good college programs
- Whether a coach wants to win but understands that water polo is a game, not a matter of life and death
- Whether a coach is highly respected by his fellow high school coaches and college coaches
Brian Kreutzkamp’s record speaks for itself:
1995-96, head coach at Costa Mesa, had a record of 46-11, won the CIF Southern Section Division 2 championship in 1996
1999-2000, co-head coach at Newport Harbor in 1999 and head coach in 2000, had a record of 52-8, won the Southern Section Division 1 championship (the premier division) in 2000
2001 - head coach at Golden West College, had a record of 33-2, won the California Community College State championship
2002-2004, assistant coach for John Vargas at Stanford, won the NCAA championship in 2002
2005 to the present, head coach at Sacred Heart Prep, winning 17 CCS championships and the last 5 Northern California Open Division Regional Tournaments (there wasn’t a CCS Tournament or a Northern California Regional Tournament in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic)
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Hard to argue with this list. However, I’m not sure how you keep Doug Peabody off this list. Just on the girls’ side 21 CIF Titles. USAWP HOF. Olympians, NT players, etc.
I would argue that private school coaches have a distinct advantage in that they have the freedom to recruit any player from any school district. Majority of the public schools in CA are very restrictive with students transferring in and out of school districts, without an address change.
Which is why Ross Sinclair is probably the most impressive with what he is able to do within the Newport Mesa School District, for both boys and girls. It also helps that he is tapped into a massive pipeline with Newport’s Jr. Guards, but other coastal cities have the same programs and not nearly as successful.
I do want to give credit to Jack Kocur with the recent success he has had at Oaks, he’s probably my top private school coach.
That said, my ATF is Chucky Roth. His players love him. His player’s parents love him. His opposing team’s parents love him (me included).
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I’m not really buying the Newport restrictions. Ross is getting tons of kids transferring from all over the country to play for him. The list is extensive.
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Ross certainly has managed to pull talent from outside the district, but the restrictions are definitely there. He’s just figured out how to navigate the system. It’s still a major extra hurdle that private schools simply don’t have. Which makes his success all the more impressive when you consider that these players were willing to jump through all these hoops to play for him.
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