The Hyperion Heroes series chronicles the notable teams, student-athletes, coaches and storylines that have defined Stanford's 49-year NCAA title streak. Authored by David Kiefer, the first installment shines a light on the 1976 NCAA men's water polo championship team. Little did that squad know at the time, their accomplishment was the start of something special.
STANFORD, Calif. - In the spring of 1973, an orange Corvette pulled up beside the old Encina Gym on the Stanford campus. A bushy-haired young man with wide lapels strode between the gryphon statues, up the steps and toward the office of Jim Gaughran, the swimming coach who also happened to coach water polo.
Drew McDonald was an East Bay water polo standout who wanted to go to Cal, which was coached by his age-group coach, the legendary Pete Cutino. But Cutino only recruited three athletes a year “and I guess I was number four,” McDonald says.
McDonald knocked on Gaughran’s door and announced himself: “Hi, I’m Drew McDonald and I applied to Stanford and got in and I’m going to play water polo here.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Gaughran said. “Do you swim?”
That underwhelming introduction was the spark of an overwhelming accomplishment – Stanford’s streak of 49 consecutive academic years with at least one NCAA team championship – a streak that could hit 50 when Stanford men’s water polo plays host to the National Collegiate Championships this Friday-Sunday at Avery Aquatic Center.
In 1976, McDonald and goalkeeper Chris Dorst were the backbone of the team that started it all and officially kicked off the streak. Stanford’s 1976 NCAA title was the first of 11 for the men’s water polo program. The Cardinal is the nation’s all-time leader in NCAA team championships with 137 overall, entering the 2025-26 campaign.
A team without water polo scholarships (though three players were on swimming scholarships) went from a winless conference season during their freshman year to an undefeated Pac-8 campaign as seniors. The “Cardinals”, as they were known, finished 20-2 by beating UCLA, 13-12, before a packed NCAA final at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.
Dorst, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, came from nearby Menlo-Atherton High under similar low-key circumstances. The son of Cal alums, Dorst also wanted to go to Cal, but when he saw the size of its players, he realized, “I can’t compete with those guys,” he recalled. “They’ll kill me.” Instead, he was content to play in an environment without expectations.
To Gaughran’s credit, he knew it was time to hand off his water polo whistle and hired Art Lambert, head coach of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team and assistant at the 1972 Munich Games. Lambert had a wildly successful coaching career in the South Bay, winning championships at the club, community college, and high school levels.
Hyperion Heroes: 1976 Men's Water Polo
Stanford's 1976 NCAA team title kicked off the department's 49-year streak
“He gave the program instant credibility,” McDonald said.
“Art Lambert was a phenomenal coach,” Dorst said. “But let’s just say the Positive Coaching Alliance hadn’t come around at this point.”
On his first day as coach, on a brutally hot 1974 day, Lambert promised an afternoon of stadium steps. The team never ran up the bleachers in the steep Stanford Stadium bowl. But first, Lambert offered refuge to those winning a series of 1-on-1 battles in the pool on who could hold on to the ball the longest.
“It was basically MMA,” Dorst said. “These guys were crushing each other.”
It also set the tone.
“He won everywhere he went,” Dorst said. “We knew if we listened to him, we’d be OK. You just had to grow pretty thick skin. I was his sounding board, let’s say, for a few months. You look around and say, OK, I can cry under water and try to hold my breath until he’s tired, or I could suck it up and do what he tells me.”
Dorst chose the latter and credited Lambert with developing the mental side of his game, which Dorst said was the key to unlocking his potential.
Dorst’s talent allowed Stanford to become aggressive offensively and Lambert installed a system of defense and counterattacks. As soon as the ball turned over, “we had guys flying in the other direction,” Dorst said. “Marty Davis, Rick Johannsen, Doug Burke … these guys just took off.”
Lambert told the team, “I want people afraid when they come to play us.” That didn’t mean beating a team up physically, though McDonald was something of an enforcer, but in exhausting opponents.
Each season, Stanford improved. Sixth at nationals in 1974, fourth in 1975.
Before the 1976 season, Stanford was off to Europe for a four-game series in the Soviet Union against Moscow State, a university team in name only with players as old as 35.
In Moscow, Minsk, and Leningrad, Stanford went 0-3-1 against the Soviets, couldn’t go anywhere without a “minder” to follow them, and still made $100 for each pair of jeans sold on the black market.
On the return, Stanford played exhibitions in West Germany and the Netherlands, beating the Dutch national team that had just won bronze at the Montreal Olympics, by a 4-2 score.
After that game, Lambert told his players, “That was the best water polo I’ve ever seen.”
The tour concluded with a tournament in a canal in Utrecht, with a backdrop of floating cigarette butts, beer bottles, and chilly water. After one game, Lambert pulled the plug and Stanford returned home a more seasoned and confident team.
“That woke everybody up on our side,” McDonald said. “Hey, we might be pretty good.”
John Tanner, now a 10-time NCAA champion as the Dunlevie Family Director of Women’s Water Polo at Stanford, was a Menlo-Atherton junior during that 1976 season. He regularly attended games at the deGuerre Pool Complex, sitting on the grass berm with his friends during Stanford’s games played across the 50-meter Baker Pool.
“It felt like Stanford was the center of the water polo universe,” Tanner said. “They were amazing role models in terms of their toughness and durability. They played really hard. Whenever I watch a Stanford team in any sport playing gritty and being tough when things get hard and persevering to win, it brings me back to those times.”
Stanford won each 1976 NCAA tournament game by a single goal, but never felt truly threatened. Dorst blocked at least five penalty shots in the final, including three in the fourth quarter and made a late steal. McDonald and sophomore Burke scored four goals apiece. Besides each earning All-America honors that season, Dorst, McDonald, and Burke became Olympians and each is in the U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame.
Lambert left after that season to coach Stanford’s men’s and women’s volleyball teams, but “it was like the floodgates opened,” McDonald said. “This was the beginning of the deluge. Watch out world. Here we come.”