Diablo Water Polo was founded in the spring of 1999 by Bill Purcell, the oldest brother of head coach Jim Purcell. The initial goal in forming is competitive summer water polo program was to provide quality coaching and improve the performance of the De La Salle High School team in the NCS Championship Water Polo Tournament. Their goal was achieved after Diablo’s initial summer season. De La Salle’s water polo team, where Bill’s son John was a senior, placed 2nd in the 1999 NCS tournament. Since then, DLS has won 3 consecutive NCS Water Polo Championships in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

Diablo Water Polo was, and still is, open to any high school and grade school player in the Tri Valley Area. Diablo Water polo has grown both in numbers and stature from its’ humble beginning of 40 athletes in 1999 to approximately 170 poloists in 2001. Our coaching staff teaches players from De La Salle HS, Northgate HS, Monte Vista HS, San Ramon Valley HS, Ygnacio Valley HS, Clayton Valley HS, Benicia HS, Piedmont HS, Acalanes HS and many Middle Schools.

Diablo Water Polo players have competed in many prestigious men’s tournaments over these past 3 years in various age groups; 18/under, 16/under and 14/under. These tournaments have included the Hawaiian Invitational, Santa Barbara International Invitational, 20/under National Championships, National Junior Olympic Zone Qualifying Tournament and the Junior Olympic National Championships. Our J.O. teams have traveled to San Jose in 1999, Los Angeles in 2000 and to Ann Arbor, Michigan in the summer of 2001.

Diablo’s expert coaching staff collectively possesses over 120 years of experience in playing, coaching and refereeing the great game of water polo. These coaches are Jim Purcell, Jeff Roy, Jimmy & Jeremy Karas. We also have many, highly credentialed parent volunteers on our pool decks such as, Carlos Steffens (Cal ’80), Mark Watson (UCLA ’81), Peter Schnugg (Cal ’73), Kevin Robertson (Cal ’81). Our student coaches are Matt Cooper and Ryan Driscoll from De LaSalle HS (’02), and Peter Trenkwalder and Andrew Frischerz from Northgate HS (’02).