Coast Coaches Corner -- Anthony Iacopetti
Shortly after college in 2004, Anthony Iacopetti was making his way into the world of banking and business. His swim career was over and he was about to embark on life after the water. But there was one problem ... he didn't want that chapter of his life to end.
"Once I got home with a finance degree, I was ready to go into the business/banking world and I did that for several months, but I wanted to get back into coaching," Iacopetti said. "I bumped into my former coach, Dave Salo, who was at OCC at the time and coaching the practices. He wanted me to come by and help him. I had met (OCC head coach Don Watson) as a meet-n-greet and came back in the spring of 2004. I'll never forget that first day ... I walked onto OCC's pool deck and the swimmers were all jumping in and Dave told me, 'I've got to leave.' I had no idea I was running practice, nor did I know what I was even getting into! Right then, I just ran practices and Don just let me run with it."
Much like an early introduction to swimming ... sometimes the easiest way to get in is to just jump in! That crash course into life as a coach at Orange Coast College ended up being a life-changing experience, one that Iacopetti is still enjoying to this day.
"It's been an amazing experience," Iacopetti said. "I know I'm still one of the younger coaches here, but I'm also part of the 'old' group. Part of my 'family' when I first started here at OCC was with (former baseball coach John Altobelli) and (retired track and field head coach) John Knox and obviously Don Watson. Now, there are so many new faces, so I'm going to start growing with the rest of the coaches who are more my age. I feel like my responsibility involves getting with the young guys and enforcing our new system. It's a new world and a new group of people."
Iacopetti's path to OCC began just up the 405 Freeway in Huntington Beach, where he grew up near and in the water. "I grew up swimming and it was the only sport I competed in," Iacopetti said. "I was good at other sports, but I was a beach kid in Huntington Beach, so that's where my heart was. I began to swim when I was six years old and took part in various summer leagues and junior programs. I was pretty good and proficient in all of the strokes at a young age. My parents weren't athletes so they had no idea I would be good at it. As I got older, I was more of a sprinter in the pool, and I also swam the IM (individual medley) and butterfly. I won Sunset League in 50/100 free, 100 fly, 100 back in different seasons and I also won the 200 IM my senior year. I also competed in water polo, but my focus was on swimming … it was all I ever did."
While he was excelling at the high school level, Iacopetti began to swim with the NOVA Swim Club and it was there that he met Dave Solo and his mindset to swimming completely changed. "As I got older, people caught up to me and I realized I really needed to work more and I began to get burned out in swimming," Iacopetti said. "Swimming and gymnastics have incredibly high burnout rates, historically speaking. But I was able to swim for good coaches – world class coaches, who trained Olympic gold medalists in distance events. I joined the NOVA Swim Club my senior year and swam for Dave. I was fortunate enough to swim with amazing swimmers like Amanda Beard and Jason Lezak and Dave was the reason I later became a coach. He coached in a different way – a way that was kind of frowned upon in the swim world, but we knew it worked. He had a very different take on how to train athletes – instead of a sprint/power/technique, it was more of a short-burst technique. His training helped me get a scholarship to the University of New Mexico."
Unfortunately for Iacopetti, his swim career was cut short when the college disbanded its men's program due to budgetary and Title IX requirements, but he stayed at the school and a new opportunity came from it ... the opportunity to coach. " I went to my coach and UNM and I asked about coaching," Iacopetti said. "I was able to coach with the Division I women's swim team as a junior in college so that was an incredible experience. I later became a sprint coach senior and fifth year."
Fast forward to 2004 and his early tenure at OCC, where Iacopetti began an interesting relationship with Watson, a longtime coach who guided Coast to 19 state championships over his 30-year career before tragically passing away in 2011 after a decade-long batter with cancer at the age of 59
"He was intense … good in some ways, bad in others," Iacopetti said of Watson. "He looked like he was one of the biggest (jerks), but he really wasn't. He was really good at controlling his teams because he was a man of few words. If he talked, it's either really good or really bad. I remember my first year in 2004, I called him and told him that I might be a couple of minutes late. Practice was a 1 p.m. and I arrived at 12:59. He said, 'Don't ever call me. If you're going to be late, just don't ever come back.'
"Don was always perfectly on time. Even after eight years of knowing him, I remember going to his house just to pick something up at 10 a.m. and I showed up at 10:15 and he said, 'Don't ever show up late like that.' The men's teams hadn't won since 1992 and Don was impressed with how we were able to improve our program and win against the best programs in the state. We won state in 2006 and 2007, but we weren't so good in 2008. He then told me, 'You weren't hired to get 10th place … you were hired to win championships.' He just never let up! He drove me to be the best that I could be."
Taking over a program deeply rich in tradition is never an easy task, especially when you're a young and up-and-coming coach with little recognition around this swimming-rich region. But, Iacopetti learned the finer details of life as a community college head coach from Watson and used his natural communication skills to continue the winning ways here at Orange Coast College. In addition to all of that, Iacopetti had to try and convince potential Pirate swimmers to come to OCC and swim in a pool that, well, let's just say wasn't one of the most elite facilities in the area ... or even neighborhood!
"Every good swimmer in our area has been to the (Golden West College) pool and competed, but I like to thinkI'm pretty good at recruiting," Iacopetti said. "It's a bit of sales and I've got this weird knack of relating to people, especially swimmers. Early on, Don was a good recruiter and I had the ability of doing the speaking. I was a bit of a fresh-faced kid in my mid 20s compared to the older coaches. I was more of a player's coach and I could relate to them. I remember with our old facility, in the past, I'd show them the old pool and I'd tell them that yes, it's the worst pool in Orange County … and yes, GWC has a way better pool than we've got, but look at those numbers (state championships) on the wall. We're doing something different that's generating results."
The numbers don't lie and neither do the championships. After taking over full-time, Iacopetti has kept the Pirates at or near the top of the sport at the California Community College level. Since arriving in 2004 as an assistant thru his current stint as head coach for both programs, the Pirates have captured 12 state championships and have won more individual event state championships than can be chronicled in this story. The key to success is not only the hard work and effort put in by the swimmers and coaches throughout the season, but it's also a matter of squeezing the absolute most out of every event to garner the best results.
It's not as easy as it looks.
"In a close meet, you have to keep your senses about you and keep your team focused on the immediate session," Iacopetti said. "At a State Meet, there are six sessions and you have to treat them much like an inning in baseball; if you were to play three innings in the morning, three more in the evening and three more the following morning. It's all about managing the situation and your focus on being in the present and being at your best as things happen. For the swimmers, it's a waste to look ahead … that's my job.
"In 2007, I projected two months before that we can compete for a state title, but I told them that we had to start working right then and there and push harder than they've been pushed. That's what it took to win, but they did it.
"The 2018 men thought I was crazy. I kept talking about a team up north (Sierra), but I prepped them and we let things play out. I project ahead constantly. You know certain times and certain programs and how they normally improve and in a close meet, it's all about the preparation. However, when you are coaching teams rich in talent and depth, your goal is that you want them to swim at their best. You try and keep them respectful even when they know they're in a class by themselves. You have to be humble and you want them to swim at their best.
"The 2016 women's team was so good, their performance was like a show. You want to show everyone how hard they worked and how good they are. They had worked on certain underwater techniques that helped them perform even better and I remember how everyone of our women's team swam so well that weekend. They took off so much time off their races and so many things happened. One of our girls in particular didn't even think she was going to win a state championship … she had no idea she would win. But at state, she was rested and fully ready to go and she took off NINE seconds off her 500 free time to win. It was awesome."
The number-crunching world of business and finance that Iacopetti was prepping for as a kid and in college has served him well in the world of swimming. It's not just about going all-out for every race ... there is months of preparation and even a little strategy and homework thrown into the mix as well.
"I know what I need to do every year and I try and 'crack the code'," Iacopetti said. "I've always had this brain that tries to run the numbers ahead of time. It's rewarding, but it kind of sucks too. It's easy to over-think and you have to pull yourself out of it.
"A great example of this came in 2018. We had Hayden Hemmens, who was the State Swimmer of the Year. He was going to do the 200/500 free and 200 back, but I got wind that there was a really good 500 free swimmer at Sierra College … like REALLY fast! He's also a miler so he's got crazy-good endurance. Hayden was way faster in the 50 and 100, but he didn't have the mile time, so I coached Hayden into how to swim the 500 free. I told Hayden, 'If you get out ahead of him, go at your pace and he'll just stay on your hip. Then, you'll have the energy to be able to sprint harder at the end.'
"In the finals, they were neck and neck for 18 laps and finally, Hayden sprinted through him to get the win. Hayden paced it right because they both had a lot left in the tank, but Hayden had the better sprint ability. I teach swimmers not to breathe in the final 10 yards – Hayden didn't breathe, and the Sierra swimmer took two breaths … that was the difference. Also, Hayden had close IM races during the season, and he learned how to finish races and close guys out."
So now comes Part II of Iacopetti's career and the future is looking better than ever. After years and years of coaching both women's water polo and both swim programs, the Pirates have brought in a full-time water polo coach for both programs in Dan Matulis, freeing up Iacopetti for OCC swimming. In addition to that, the Pirates will be moving out of their "bathtub" swimming pool and into a brand-new, state-of-the-art aquatics pavilion that rivals any facility at any level across the nation.
"It's definitely like two halves of my career now … the original facility vs. what we have now," Iacopetti said. "Now with this new facility, it's going to be dynamite. We have a Jumbotron scoreboard and I've already played a three-minute motivational sports video on our 25-foot by 25-foot screen. The events we will be able to host … the way we can now train … the size/scope … everything is proportionally big! It's like seven times bigger than what we had before. We can train at a world-class level now. In the past, we had to do smoke & mirror strategies and now we can do everything. I'm incredibly excited and energized. When it comes to a swimmer or polo player who is undecided, that facility will be the closer for us."
So as we watch the end of 2020 and the start of 2021, all of our lives will have changed in the wake of this COVID-19 pandemic. But with the bright future of the aquatics programs at OCC, it's a future that Iacopetti is excited for. "It's a new world and a new group of people here at OCC," Iacopetti said. "In the past, coaching the three sports always pulled me so far away from everything else. I was always on an island being in season in the fall and in season in the spring. I was in 'season mode' all the time. But now with Dan here coaching our water polo teams, I'll be able to grow a little bit with the school. I need to find a way to grow with the rest of the department and I'm hoping that my freedom to coach less sports will help me interact more with the rest of the sports. We are more similar in age all the way around and I hope we can all come together and do more fun things together."
