Not many coaches have a track record like Corona del Mar High girls' water polo coach Aaron Chaney.
Chaney has coached the Sea Kings for five full years. Over those five years, CdM has accumulated a 124-31 record that would make Phil Jackson blush.
And, for five consecutive years, Corona del Mar has held up the CIF championship hardware at the end of the season.
"I feel fortunate," Chaney said. "I've got a good group of kids who work hard and are dedicated. They make sacrifices to the team and work hard."
To illustrate his point, he pointed out what the Corona del Mar girls' sports accomplished during the fall season — a state champion in cross country, a section champion in tennis and a state regional semifinalist in volleyball.
"Other coaches sometimes complain about girls' teams because they're not committed, or they have other things going on," Chaney said. "We're really lucky at CdM. We have girls who want to work hard."
But to solely credit the athletes would be doing a disservice to Chaney. The 50-year-old Irvine resident has an encyclopedia of water polo experience in his mind.
Much of that can be credited to the work he does as a referee, where he has called everything from last month's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's water polo championship matches to the games at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
"He puts so much preparation into everything he does," said CdM senior water polo player Cari Levine. "He helps us prepare in and out of the water, and helps our team bond. I think he makes us not only better water polo players, but also better people."
Chaney has been around water polo for about 35 years, he said, since he was in eighth grade in Honolulu, Hawaii. A driver, he played water polo through college; in his senior season of 1979, Chaney helped UC Santa Barbara to the NCAA title.
After playing in Australia for about eight months, Chaney returned to Honolulu, where he coached boys' water polo for 19 more years at the private Iolani School. Over the last five years of his tenure there, he also coached girls' water polo.
He originally came to California with the intent of preparing for the 2004 Olympics. After coaching at Villa Park for less than a year, the CdM job opened up when former coach John Vargas left to coach at Stanford.
Chaney said the school had decided to split the boys' and girls' jobs up, and he decided to try his hand at coaching the girls' team.
