Over winter break, 14-year-old Layne Porter spent a week playing water polo for eight hours a day with the best youth water polo players in the nation. He trained from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. more than 6,000 feet above sea level, and he isn’t even in high school yet.
As part of USA Water Polo’s Olympic Development Program, Porter was one of 120 players vetted for a weeklong polo intensive and invited to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The national team’s coaching staff was joined by 25 coaches from around the United States. Kelly Porter, Layne’s father and coach, was selected to go in December as well. So were Emily Edds, Maddie Hermesch, and Mary Rhodes who, like Layne, play at One Way Water Polo club, where Kelly coaches.
Layne said that the training center was huge. It has a cycling racetrack known as a velodrome, an indoor shooting range, and a sports science lab. The dining hall is expansive—alongside Olympic athletes from all around the world, he ate smoked salmon, tilapia, prime rib, grilled cheese, pasta, salad, and dessert. There’s also a recovery bar generously stocked with bananas, soymilk, and various protein powders.
“It has everything you can think of,” Layne said. “Even wheelchair rugby.”
In the pool, the competition was fierce. Layne was a dark horse prospect in a fantasy draft drawn up by the coaches. He’s 5-foot-4 and was passed over by many for bigger, older players—players who, with more muscle and fat to move around, ended up starved for oxygen (especially in the thin air of Colorado Springs).
“They thought all the big guys were going to destroy everybody,” Kelly explained, “but it was the opposite. All the little guys stepped up and knocked the big guys. ... They were huffing and puffing and too big.”
Layne, skirting the edges of the defense as a driver, made it to the championship game and scored a goal.
Kelly, who cheerleads for his son as effectively as he coaches him, described Layne as a “waterman.” Layne surfs on a 5-foot-4 Channel Islands shortboard and does Junior Lifeguards in the summer.
“I don’t have to force it on him,” Kelly said.
Water polo is embedded deep in the Porter family. It’s Kelly’s job, but it’s also a lifelong passion.
Kelly grew up wrestling and playing football and basketball. He discovered water polo as a sophomore in high school and fell in love. At Cuesta College, he was a ferocious player and was named All American two years in a row. He scored 139 goals in 1987, setting a record for scoring in a single season that still stands. Porter played at the University of Pacific before a stint with a professional team in Australia. Today, he teaches physical education at Fesler Junior High and coaches at One Way Water Polo.
Layne said his dad is his motivator and a big inspiration. Kelly feeds his son’s love of the game with stories of playing polo at the collegiate and professional level.
“He’s gone so far,” Layne said.
At One Way Water Polo, where Layne plays and Kelly coaches, there’s another father-son legacy. Charlie Bell, who also coaches at St. Joseph High School, started One Way Water Polo with Rob Knight, a coach at Righetti, in 2007. They named the program for One Way Board Shop.
“That was kind of our group: the skater-surfer kid,” Charilie said. “It’s kind of a positive deal.”
Charlie’s father, Karl, graduated from Santa Maria High in 1954. He discovered water polo at Cal Poly and returned to Santa Maria High to teach and coach after graduation. In the early 1960s, he started the water polo program there. Karl retired in 1996. In 2011, Santa Maria High officials named their water facility the Karl Bell Aquatic Center.
Encouraged by his father, Charlie starting playing water polo at the age of 12. Without a youth league to join, he squared off against high school players. Later, he played at Santa Maria High and Allan Hancock College. As an adult, he coaches and plays with the master’s group at One Way.
The program started with fewer than a dozen kids; today, it boasts some 70 members, many of whom are preparing for high school polo. The kids who come up through One Way don’t feed into a single high school, and the coaches are trying to raise the level of water polo play across Santa Maria.
Occasionally, One Way gets a player like Layne. Charlie described him as a “hustler” who is creative and tenacious.
“Three more of him would be nice,” Charlie joked. “He’s just like his dad—not afraid of somebody twice his size.”
Sean McNulty is a contributing writer to the Sun. Reach him through Managing Editor Camillia Lanham at [email protected].
