Menlo School water polo coach wins press post at Olympics Menlo School water polo coach wins press post at Olympics (June 28, 2000)

Kyle Utsumi named press room supervisor for water polo events

It will be an exciting summer for Kyle Utsumi, the Menlo School water polo coach who led the 1998 girls' varsity team to the Central Coast Section championship. Utsumi, who has been working with the U.S. Men's and Women's Olympic Water Polo teams, was recently hired by the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to serve as a news media specialist for the water polo events.

He will head up the press room at the sport's venue, overseeing a staff of writers, supervising the distribution of press releases, and doing previews for every game. There will be 12 men's and 6 women's teams competing.

Men's water polo was the first Olympic team sport, debuting at the 1900 event. This year, women will be allowed to enter the competition, making it at once the oldest and the newest team sport in Olympic history.

Utsumi's love of the sport and connection to top water polo teams go back many years and has taken him around the world. A varsity team player at Stanford, he later became a member of the press information team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He traveled to Athens, Perth and Winnipeg for World Cup matches. This spring he was in Palermo, Italy, watching the women qualify for this summer's Olympics.

"Water polo is very popular in Europe, and not nearly as visible in the United States," he says. "It's very important to the Australians, too, who are favored to win medals this year."

Before coming to Menlo, Utsumi was in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as the director of communications for USA Water Polo, the national governing body of the sport.

"Not many people get to be Olympians," he says, "so it's been a really neat experience to get to be part of these events."