Stanford's were-Wolf
roams into Westwood
Poloist leads No. 1 Cardinal against No. 5 Bruin team
By Esther Hui
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Wolf Wigo just sounds dangerous.
The Stanford water poloist plays hard, and his aggressive presence has been known to spark tempers in the pool. But most athletes will say his intensity brings the level of play up in the games, and the 6-foot-2 -inch senior would hardly have become Stanford's leading scorer for three of the past four years by playing conservatively.
"He's the guy that makes things happen," Stanford head coach Dante Dettamanti said. "I can think of five games last year when he scored the go-ahead or winning goal. When he needs to score he can really score."
"In the pool I'm pretty aggressive," Wigo said. "I'm one of the smaller guys on the team so I have to be intense. I have to be really fired up."
What is amazing about Wigo is that he has built up such a reputation even while suffering from a degenerative back disease which has almost completely deteriorated the cartilage in between two discs in his back. The twisting involved in shooting goals in water polo is simply bone rubbing against bone for Wigo, an almost constant pain since his sophomore year.
"The pain was so bad his sophomore year that we had to keep him out of the water for two weeks prior to the NCAA championships," Dettamanti said. "That was the year we lost in sudden death overtime against Cal in the championship game. Wolf had missed so much training it was hard to play him in those games, though in hindsight I probably should have. Even though he was out of shape he was probably a better player than a lot of the guys we had in there."
"I've thought about surgery but I don't think it's worth it," Wigo said. "The surgery would fuse three bones together, and there would be no flexibility. The doctor said I'd never get back to the same level I was before the surgery.
"My sophomore year there were some days I couldn't walk because my back hurt so much I couldn't even get out of bed. It's not nearly that bad yet this year, but I can feel the pain pretty much every day."
UCLA (10-8 overall, 2-4 in MPSF) will face Wigo and the rest of the Stanford Cardinal (7-1 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) Saturday at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center. A win for Stanford will secure its conference title and a No. 1 seeding for the NCAA tournament. A win for the Bruins would guarantee a berth to the NCAA tourney, something which is on the minds of all on the team who experienced last year's early elimination.
Changes in the starting lineup for the Bruins will be the addition of freshman Luther Weidner at the two-meter position. Weidner was a top player for the Bruins against Pepperdine and Air Force, and Baker hopes that the rearrangement will help the team overall.
"Luther's been playing very well," UCLA head coach Guy Baker said. "He gives a big physical set at the two meter position, and he can establish the hole position for us at the beginning, and we can save Mark (Sutter) for later on in the game. Hopefully it's going to make us a better team."
Sunday night the Bruins will travel to Lo Jolla to play UC San Diego, but the game on everybody's mind is UCLA's matchup with Stanford.