Stanley Cole

Stanley Clark Cole (October 12, 1945 – July 26, 2018) was a water polo player from the United States, who competed for the University of California Los Angeles and participated in three consecutive Summer Olympics for his native country, starting in 1964. He won the bronze medal with the Men's National Team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. In 1984, he was inducted into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame. After college, and Naval service, he served as an Executive in the construction industry.

Early life Stanley Cole was born October 12, 1945 in Dover, Delaware, to Eugene and Irma Cole. His father was with the U.S. Army Air Corps, and his family moved with greater frequency than most. After an earlier move, the family settled in Whittier, California around 1948. Starting to swim competitively by the age of eight, Cole was teaching swimming and competing in water polo in Whittier by the age of twelve. Cole attended Whittier High School from around 1959-1963, where in his Freshman year, his "C" team went undefeated, winning the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship. Helping to refocus high school sports priorities, in his Senior year at Whittier he was named the Athlete of the Year, the first time the award had been given to an athlete outside of football.

University of California Los Angeles Cole attended the University of California Los Angeles on a water polo and swimming scholarship, where he was voted an All-American three times, and was a key contributor to UCLA's 1965-7 undefeated water polo teams. Making an immediate impact, he helped lead the Bruin freshman in scoring in 1963 with 53 goals scored in 10 games, and later held a three-season goal scoring record of 165.

Naval service While at UCLA, Cole completed coursework for the Reserved Officer's Training Corps ROTC. After graduation from UCLA, and attending the 1968 Olympics, Cole became an officer in the U.S. Navy, where he would complete tours of Viet Nam, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan. After transferring from the USS Terrell County, a tank-landing ship, he served on the USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) which stopped at Okinowa, Singapore and Hawaii. During his service on April 17, 1970, the Iwo Jima recovered the well-known astronauts and the capsule from the ill-fated Apollo 13 which re-entered earth's atmosphere and splashed-down safely despite suffering from a badly damaged service module. He left the Navy as a Lieutenant to concentrate on training for the 1972 Munich Olypmics.

Cole married Mary A. Walsh, a Dentist, around 1982.

After his athletic and Naval careers, Cole worked in the construction industry for over four decades. He was a project manager for Ernest W. Hahn, and was an executive in charge of construction for Newport Beach's Carver Development. He later started his own company, Cole Development that primarily built custom homes in San Diego County. As an honor from his High School alma mater in 2015, he was voted a member of the Whittier High School Hall of Fame.