Longtime Newport Harbor High water polo coach Bill Barnett dies at 76
LA TimesLongtime Newport Harbor High water polo coach Bill Barnett died Monday at his home in Laguna Beach after a brief battle with acute leukemia, his wife, Marcia, said Wednesday. That’s pretty well how he lived his life … He would say, ‘You can’t take accolades to Albertsons.’ — Marcia Barnett Presley Pender, the team captain on the 2012 team who went on to play at the University of Michigan, said that Barnett was “incredible as a coach, a mentor, a friend.” “He touched my life in such a special way,” Pender said. “When I look back and think about the impact he’s made, I think about how he taught me so much about tradition, about Newport Harbor, how to be a teammate and a leader.” Barnett became the U.S. men’s national team coach in 1984 and led Team USA to silver in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. “The thing that sticks with me the most is the preparation he put into everything,” said current Newport Harbor boys’ and girls’ water polo coach Ross Sinclair, who played for Barnett as a freshman in 1999.
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