Ron Koehler’s love of water polo and swimming has taken him to many places throughout his life.
Three weeks ago, that passion took the 80-year-old Hilo resident to Doha, Qatar — where he competed in the World Aquatic Masters Championship.
Through nearly ten days of competition, Koehler competed in five different swimming events and played on the championship’s only 75+ water polo team — which belongs to Blue Thunder, a club that Koehler has been part of for years.
Koehler often had to go straight from water polo matches into swimming events — but he still managed to pull off a second-place finish in the 400 individual medley and third place in the 200 breast stroke.
He also made some plays for Blue Thunder — scoring the team’s only goal in a 19-1 loss to USA’s Channel Islands 70+ and getting several steals during other games.
Though Blue Thunder went 0-5, it won the gold medal by default — being the only team in its age group and only playing younger squads.
Koehler didn’t encounter anyone else from Hawai‘i at the masters, and found there to be few Americans in his age range.
“In my age group I was the only US swimmer,” Koehler said. “People didn’t wanna go to Qatar. I gotta give some credit for my medals, because a lot of people didn’t show up.”
Koehler has been attending the World Aquatic Masters Championship since 2010, shortly after he retired from working at W.M. Keck Observatory — where he had worked since 1979.
“I was coaching water polo and my email was in a water polo group,” he said. “Someone had come from Guam, and needed a water polo player. He asked if anyone was interested in joining a 65+ water polo team going to Sweden in 2010, and I told him I was.
“Then I called my wife and said ‘will you let me go to Sweden?’ She said yes.”
Since then, the social climate of the international masters water polo community has been one of the main things keeping Koehler invested in the competitions.
“I have some really good friends, both teammates and enemies,” he said. “It’s a social thing when you go to these things. It’s been really worthwhile.
“The guys I play against, I’ve known since 2010. I became very good friends with a team from Slovakia. They didn’t have enough players, so I joined them and played in the European championship in 2011. Even though we didn’t speak the same language and didn’t have many substitutes, we took third place.”
It also helps that Koehler’s friends and family are, as he puts it, “somewhat impressed” by his athletic endeavors.
Leading up to his retirement, Koehler spent 12 years coaching Hilo High’s girls water polo team — and was a driving force behind the establishment of Big Island Interscholatic Association (BIIF) — and subsequently, statewide — high school girls water polo in the year 2000.
“At that time, they did not have public schools on O‘ahu playing water polo,” Koehler said. “That started the whole chain reaction that became the (Hawaii High School Athletic Association) state championship that they have now. I’m proud of doing that.”
Koehler’s career in the pool began during his childhood — almost by accident.
“I swam just before things got intense,” Koehler said. “There were very few age group programs when I was a kid. I learned to swim because I used to spend summers at a lake, and my brothers threw me in.
“Everyone had to take swim class in high school, and the coach was there. He told me ‘you come to practice.’ It wasn’t a choice. Anyways, I went to practice and I wasn’t very good, but I kept doing it. I never swam summers, I never swam age group — but still, as a junior I set the 200 freestyle record for the city of Chicago’s public schools.”
Koehler got a scholarship to swim for Loyola University, and was a student during 1963 — when the Ramblers’ basketball team won its first (and so far only) NCAA championship.
“I swam there, but it was kind of a low-level program,” Koehler said. “I swam about 3000 yards a day. The big boys at Indiana and such swam 10,000 yards a day. But it was a good experience.”
After college, Koehlerbecame a teacher — a career which eventually led him to Honolulu, where he taught and coached at Saint Louis School. Koehler also coached the Hawaii Kai swim team and started the first age group water polo team on O‘ahu. One of his pupils, Shari Smart, went on to become the first Rainbow Wahine water polo coach 1996.
Eventually, Koehler and his family had had enough of the big city, and found their way to Hawai‘i Island.
“I had to get out of Honolulu,” Koehler said. “Partly because the pay was very bad, and I had two kids. I was very lucky to have that job at Mauna Kea.”
As a family man, Koehler drifted away from being an athlete himself — instead focusing on working and coaching. But, his love of sports eventually drove him back into an active lifestyle.
“I came over here, I had kids, was working hard with two jobs most of the time,” he said. “I kind of let things go for a while, then started getting into better shape.
“Pretty much every morning I do a 20-30 minute workout with bands and ropes, just to keep everything in order — there’s some stretching involved. One of my main activities is golf, I love to play golf. I swim a couple of times a week, I lift weights a couple of times a week and I golf. I think the main incentive in my life in life is golf.”
Anyone interested in playing masters water polo can go to the Blue Thunder website — btmwaterpolo.org/about-us.
