Coach in CdM’s corner

For the majority of the girls playing for a CIF Southern Section Division I title in water polo tonight, their love for the sport started with a fun pseudo game and a man named Ted Bandaruk.

The girls from Corona del Mar High played a game called “trashketball” on Fridays during the summer when they were swimming for Bandaruk and the Harbor View Swim Team. Just before the girls turned 10, Bandaruk thought of a fun way to introduce them to the sport before they joined the CdM youth water polo program.

Back then it was trashketball, a garbage can near the pool used as a scoring goal, but now it’s about water polo. Yet Bandaruk is still around. He still supports the team and still goes to their games. He’ll be at Irvine High tonight.

The Sea Kings will be playing to win their first CIF title in Division I against Dos Pueblos in a game scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

“He is wonderful,” CdM senior Elise Molnar said of Bandaruk. “He’s just so supportive. He’s just so nice.”

Said Heather Van Hiel: “It’s always fun to see him there at the games. I was swimming for the program when I was 4 years old. A lot of the girls on the team it’s the same situation. We started out with him. Even though he’s not our coach he still follows what we do. It’s just really nice.”

Van Hiel’s mother, Ann, had two children go through the HVST program. Like many parents in the community she found Bandaruk as a special person coaching the young athletes.

“Ted really made it fun for the kids,” Ann Van Hiel said. “They really never knew how hard they were working.”

Bandaruk will be coaching the Harbor View Swim Team for the 44th year this summer. He also coaches youth water polo and he’s been a professor at Orange Coast College for the past 39 years.

He says he’s blessed to be able to have good jobs in such a tough economic time. He also counts himself fortunate to work with the youth and watch the young players as they grow in the community.

And, he’s especially happy to see this group of CdM girls playing for a CIF title for the second straight year. Of course, this time he wants them to win it.

“I’m so happy for them,” he said. “They’ve earned it. To get to this point they have worked very hard. They are a smart group of girls.”

There is a sense of pride in Bandaruk’s tone when he speaks of the CdM girls. He also likes to talk about the team’s assistant coaches, Christina Hewko and Vivian Liao. They too started as kids in Bandaruk’s youth swim program. They also were standouts for the Sea Kings when they were in high school.

Bandaruk saw when the CdM High girls’ water polo team first began in the 1997-98 season. His son-in-law John Vargas coached the first girls’ team before he went on to become the Stanford men’s water polo team.

Bandaruk watched as Vargas built up the program, then handed it over to his friend Aaron Chaney, who guided CdM to its first CIF title in Division IV in 2002. The Sea Kings then won four straight CIF titles in Division II.

Bandaruk is also a fan of the CdM boys’ team, as his sons, Teddy and Jake, are a part of the program.

The youth coach plans to remain a fan after Saturday night, as well.

“Every water polo game, you either win or lose, it’s just the way the ball bounces,” he said. “Just to get there is exciting. You can’t hang your head too low if you lose ... But let’s just hope the ball bounces the right way.”