HRV water polo gets ‘new’ leadership

That opens the door for coaching duties to be split between the capable hands of Kellie Dunn and Dave Robinson, with Dunn heading up the girls program and Robinson helming the boys program. Once composed of a single co-ed group, HRV water polo has continued to grow in size, warranting separate teams for both boys and girls and separate coaches as well. Dunn and Robinson are familiar faces on the team — both previously serving as assistant coaches under Cameron.

Dunn and Robinson are busy getting things in order in preparation for the boys’ and girls’ season-opener against David Douglas High School on Aug. 30 (home-opener is against Reynolds Sept. 17 at the Hood River Valley Aquatic Center), but took time to answer questions from the News to help reintroduce themselves to the community.

Kellie Dunn

Dunn grew up on the west side of Portland, and started playing for the Tualatin Hills Water Polo Club in eighth grade “after making a leap of faith from my first love, soccer, to something totally new and different.”

She never looked back, continuing to play for the club all throughout high school, and competed annually in the Junior Olympics. She attended Jesuit High School, but as the school did not have a water polo team at the time, Dunn played for the local public school, Westview.

Dunn and her teammates at Westview saw a lot of success, with the Wildcats playing in the state tournament’s title game all four years of her high school career and taking the first-place trophy twice. At one point in her sophomore year, the team was ranked first in the country. Her first year as captain, Dunn helped lead the Wildcats to a state title as a junior.

After graduating in 2003, Dunn continued playing water polo for Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., where she was an Academic All-American. After completing her degree in English, Dunn moved back to Portland for a while before making the move out to Hood River “to be close to all the outdoor activities that the Gorge has to offer,” she says. Currently, she works for a locally-owned company based in the sports and outdoors industry called IPA Connect and lives on the west side of town with her boyfriend, Gary Szalay (a Portland firefighter) and their Great Pyrenees, Oso.

Dunn became involved with the local water program shortly after its inception, she says, when she noticed a flyer on the door of the pool when she went lap swimming after work one day (Dunn’s cousin, Connor Dunn, a 2014 HRVHS graduate, actually helped Cameron get the team started). She offered to help Cameron, who accepted, and Dunn started by assisting the boys team for the first two years, then coached the girls when they had enough members to form their own team.

Dunn says since the girls were able to field their own team in the 2014 season, their growth has been “astronomical.” Their inaugural year, the girls didn’t win a single game. In 2015, the girls qualified for the state tournament, finishing third. That success has instilled confidence in the girls, some of whom are interested in playing in college, and Dunn also expresses interest in helping players get to that level.

The area has a great pool of players to draw from, in part due to the “general athleticism” present in an active community such as Hood River that thrives on wind and water sports, Dunn says. Though the team graduated some talented seniors, there are plenty of younger players waiting for their chance to shine and Dunn can’t wait to see what they can do.

“Coming off a third-place finish at state in our second year as a team, I can honestly say that I am most looking forward to bringing a state championship home to Hood River,” she says.

Dave Robinson

Robinson was born in Vermont, but grew up in the Bay Area, attending Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, Calif. Like Dunn, Robinson also played water polo as a youth. He says he “hit the pool as a 7-year-old, swimming and playing polo, competing nationally and in Junior Olympics,” highlighted by a top-10 national swimming rank.

Robinson also continued his water polo career in college, attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he received a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He then attended Stanford University, where he received a Masters of Mechanical Engineering, as well as a Masters of Business Administration.

A resident of Hood River, Robinson is the chief operations officer of Talkoot, a software startup in Portland, and also spends his time doing executive consulting with local startups and growth companies. He lives with his wife, Kim, who is a performance coach and a personal trainer at CrossFit Hood River. He has two daughters: Lauren, a 2016 HRVHS graduate who was an accomplished cross country and track and field athlete at the high school and is on her way to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to study neuroscience; and Jamie, an incoming HRVHS sophomore who helped lead the HRV girls water polo team to the state tournament last season.

Robinson says he’s “super passionate” about youth coaching, having about 25 years under his belt, spanning swimming, basketball, and of course, water polo. He started coaching in Hood River at the club level about a year ago and assisted with both the boys and the girls high school teams during the 2015 season, which saw the boys take fourth at the state tourney. He has also been focused on helping local players who are interested to get involved in the Olympic Development Program.

Like Dunn, Robinson aims to help build the HRV water program into a dynasty.

“My goal with the high school boys and girls team is to elevate the program to be a perennial top team at state and take a few championships on the journey,” he says.