Get Herald RSSBy nature, water polo forwards are lean, mean machines. Perhaps none are leaner and meaner than Mike Gartner '09, who was named the College Water Polo Association Northern Division Player of the Week after scoring 10 goals and drawing 10 ejections over three games at the Northern Division Championship.
Gartner's 67 goals on the season are eighth in the country, making it a strong possibility that Gartner, an Honorable Mention All-American last year, could win another national award. But first, he has to lead the Bears to the Eastern Championships next weekend at Harvard - and face a grilling from The Herald.
Herald: It's been a bit of a weird season, hasn't it? Gartner: It's been tough. We've been through having a pool, to not having a pool, to maybe having a pool, to having a coach, not having a coach and probably having a coach, and in the end, we've ended up doing pretty well.
What has been the toughest thing? I think it's been hard to get the team on the same page. Now looking back, even though I thought we had an amazing team and knew exactly what was going on, in the beginning of the season, things were very unstructured, kind of like off-season water polo. Kind of like putting an all-star team together - no one was playing together. Even though we had all played together, it felt like we hadn't. Now, looking back at the end of the season, looking back at how much we've come together and put things where we should be and playing the game as a team instead of individuals, we've done a really good job considering the problems we've had.
Realistically, what do you think are your chances of winning the Eastern Championships next week? I think our chances of getting to the Eastern Championships are very high. We had Navy beat when we played them - we're going to play George Washington, and then most likely we're going to play Navy, and we had them beat last time we played them, and in the fourth quarter, they came back on some really poor calls by the referees. If we can hold them off, we'd be in the championships. Winning against the St. Francis team is just going to come down to who wants it more. And I didn't feel like in the Northern championship, our team showed that we wanted it more.
I've always heard about a lot of dirty things that water polo players do. What kind of stuff goes on underwater? Water polo is an advantaged-based game, kind of like basketball. If you have the lane to drive in, the referee is going to reward you. If the defender's in good position, then it's an offensive charge. In water polo, if you have the shot, and someone is impeding you from making that good shot from behind, from out of position, then you get rewarded. So using underwater techniques to grab and pull helps you get in position. So, grabbing the Speedo, grabbing whatever you can get a hold of, and drowning or impeding them from where they want to go, it's what you want to do. Sometimes, you get a dirty player who thinks a punch to the kidney is going to make you not going to think about it while he gets into better position. As long as it's underwater, a referee won't see it. A lot of rough play goes on, a lot of dirty things happen.
Are there a lot of dirty players on your team? In the past, Brown has been known as a dirty team, and it's hurt us in the big picture because referees will not give us good calls because we were just rough. This year, our team has done a great job of holding back, don't initiate it. We're also not going to take it. If someone's getting rough with us, we have some big, strong men who are going to fight back.
Do you consider yourself a dirty player? (Pause) There have been times when I've needed to step in and be like, "This is not going to happen." If you let someone punch you three times, then they're going to punch you all game. But if they punch you once, and you get them really good with a knee to the back or something, they're not going to touch you anymore. It's very simple.
You got into water polo a bit late as a kid. What other sports did you play? I played baseball and soccer. I wish I had played basketball. If I could pick a sport that I could be amazing at, it would be basketball. One of the things I realized when I got into water polo was that these guys were - whether or not this is the coolest sport in the world - these guys were the most in-shape people I've ever seen. To be able to swim that fast and muscle people around, it takes incredible endurance and strength. My coach in high school was just like an army sergeant, and I liked that feeling of just punishing my body, to know that I'm going to be a stronger human being.
That sounds kind of sadistic. One last, weird question: Do you believe in reincarnation? I'm going to say yes, just to make this interesting.
If you could be reincarnated as any animal, what would you be? I think if I could be reincarnated, I would be a lion. A male lion, preferably. It has a lot of benefits. You know, just chilling and waiting for the ladies to bring you all the food and whatever. I would actually like to go one day on a safari to Africa to see these awesome animals. But yeah, if I could be reincarnated, I'd take a lion.
Not a fish or a dolphin or any marine animal? You know, dolphins are the only animals that have sex for pleasure, so that would be interesting. I could do that.
