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Veteran Foothill boys water polo and swimming coach Jim Brumm, who helped expand the school’s fabled aquatics legacy with unique talents for both sports, will retire at the conclusion of the swimming season this spring.

The 63-year-old coached boys water polo at Foothill for more than 33 seasons, producing seven CIF Southern Section titles, more than 600 victories, 21 league titles and countless standouts, including Olympian J.W. Krumpholz.

Brumm also coached swimming, guiding the Aqua Knights to two CIF boys championships.

His exploits didn’t stop there.

Brumm either coached or assisted with Foothill’s trailblazing girls water polo program, coached the U.S. junior national men’s water polo team and served as the video coordinator/scout for the U.S. Olympic men’s water polo team that won a silver at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

“At one time,” former Capistrano Valley and San Clemente coach Steve Yancey said, “he was the best aquatics high school coach in the nation.”

But earlier this month, Brumm made the difficult decision to retire.

“It was really hard to tell the guys,” he said. “I retired from teaching last year and I thought this was a good time.”

Brumm took the reins of Foothill’s boys water polo program officially around 1989. By 1995, the Knights were CIF-SS Division 1 champions, edging rival Villa Park 8-7 at the old Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach.

It was the first water polo title at the school well-known in the 1970s and 1980s for its powerhouse swimming program with Coach Tom DeLong and the Furniss brothers.

Brumm led Foothill to another Division 1 title in 2008 and Division 2 crowns in 2014, ’15, ’17, ’18 and ’19.

“He was a student of the game,” said DeLong, the coach who hired Brumm at Foothill. “He might have been the best swimming and water polo coach.”

Foothill beat El Toro 8-6 for the Division 1 title in 2008.

“Always had his teams prepared,” former El Toro coach Don Stoll recalled. “Jim Brumm and Foothill seemed to make me the most nervous, and for a good reason.”

Swimming was Brumm’s passion during his own high school years. He didn’t play water polo but swam at Munster High in Indiana for Hall of Fame coach Jon Jepsen.

In college, Brumm swam at Long Beach State for legendary coach Jon Urbanchek.

Brumm teamed up at Foothill with DeLong and Dave Simcox to coach swimming. The Knights won CIF Division 2 boys swimming titles in 2017 and 2018, the same school years of water polo crowns.

“A big part of that (success) is having great athletes and I had a lot of great athletes,” Brumm said.

In swimming and water polo, Brumm was known for getting the most out of his teams and his calm temperament on his pool deck.

He credits his demeanor to mentors such as Jepsen, Urbanchek and late Long Beach State water polo coach Ken Lindgren, who he coached under at the collegiate level.

“He would always say my yelling and screaming isn’t going to win games,” DeLong said of Brumm. “He said his kids in the pool we’re going to win the games.”

Brumm also counted former high school coaches Randy Burgess of Coronado and Larry Rogers of Bellarmine as mentors.

He also cherished his numerous assistants over the years, including Dan Klatt, Dave Mikesell, Ryan Brown, Stephen Pickell, Jason Lynch, Stan Sprague, Larry Felix, Dean Crow, Derrick Lozano and Greg Enloe.

But Brumm had a special relationship with Foothill. He relished hosting the alumni water polo games on the morning of Christmas Eve. He loved teaching oceanography at the school.

The constant, though, was his family, always by his side.

His daughters Amanda and Meagan graduated from Foothill and were frequent visitors on deck. His wife Becky became a top water polo scorekeeper.

“We always called it the Foothill Family,” Brumm said. “I’m most proud of the Foothill Family.”

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