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picturing me in tight briefs, a cap pasted around my melon, you’re not far off, though I’d recommend keeping that image to yourself. One of the immediate benefits of water polo was that it helped tame my asthma. Something about the humidity allowed me to breathe easier, which meant I didn’t get tired as fast. I was able to go and go and go.
    The season came and went, and although my plan had always been to return to football come next season, Coach Massey approached me with another idea. “If you want to go back and play football, I understand that,” he said. “But I’m telling you, if you stay with this, you’ll get a college scholarship. Can you say that about football?”
    I couldn’t answer him, which tells you the decision I made.
    In the beginning, my dad didn’t like water polo because he didn’t understand it. My entire first year, he didn’t watch me play. He rationalized that I was doing it as a part-time gig that would pass once I could get back on the football field the next year.
    When I did start running again, I wasn’t slow anymore. I was catching people, even passing them. All signs pointed to me returning to football and, believe me, I thought about it. But there seemed to be more opportunity for me in the pool.
    My dad wasn’t thrilled with my decision to stick with water polo until I got him to come to a tournament at the LA Watts Summer Games.
    Water polo is hard for a new spectator to follow. There are whistles and flags and referees kicking players out when they foul. I’d equate it most with basketball, with its strategic passing and scoring setups, except water polo allows you an extra man and a goalie covering the net.
    Water polo can be played on two plains: above and below the water. What you see above the surface can be quite athletic, orchestrated like a water ballet as players stretch their torsos and arch their arms to launch the ball the length of the pool to their teammates.
    It’s what you don’t see that’s the best part. Most of the real action is taking place underneath the water, where players can control position by grabbing, kicking, or colliding into their opponents’ legs and bodies. It’s all absolutely illegal, but players can make it look like they aren’t doing anything wrong.
    When my coach had first sized me up, he hadn’t seen a swimmer. I couldn’t swim with these guys—they were rockets compared to me. In a line of speedboats, I was a tugboat. What he’d seen was an enforcer, a player who wouldn’t be afraid of dishing out or taking a few shots in order to score. My coach thought if I could just be kept under control, I could benefit the team. He was right.
    I compensated for my average swimming abilities by playing dirty. I played the position of two-meter man, or the hole man, which is like the center in basketball. You take an ass-whipping because the ball is always coming to you and, like a football quarterback, you have to toss it to someone or take it to the net to score.
    I didn’t shy away if I got hit. In fact, I went after the person to get back at him. Obviously, I knew what cheap shots and clean shots were, so I could usually weave my way in and out of the system without getting caught. When someone would cheap-shot me, I would try and be smart with my retaliation, but subtlety sometimes went out the window and I’d grab them and just start punching.
    The pool we played in had an underwater viewing tank for spectators, and in the crowd my dad could see the guys getting hit and kicked under the water with elbows and knees flying everywhere. Water polo wasn’t only the hardest game I ever played; it was also the most violent, even more than my beloved football. Suddenly my dad didn’t have a problem with water polo anymore.
    In fact, he started coming to all of my games, and it was hysterical to watch him in the stands.
    In the summer league tournament finals one year, I had a problem staying in the game. When I was hit, I would