Who is Rudy Ruth?
If you have to ask, you're probably not from Pennsylvania.
Ruth has been so influential in sustaining and developing water polo in the mid-Atlantic region that "from 1988 until the present, there isn't a player in Pennsylvania, for sure – and probably in New York, New Jersey, maybe even Virginia and Maryland – that doesn't know Rudy, hasn't played against Rudy, or hasn't been involved in a tournament he's put together," said Bernie Campbell, who co-founded the Kingfish foundation in 1999 with Ruth. "He still runs the biggest tournament for high school players on the east coast: Beast of the East," which started in 1990 and now features more than 60 teams.
Over the last 34 years, Campbell said, "I can't imagine a player that doesn't know who Rudy is or was touched by something he helped put together. That's the magnitude of his reach in water polo."
"He's the Pied Piper of water polo in the Reading area," said Dan Sharadin, commissioner of the Collegiate Water Polo Association.
And beyond.
"I could be on the West Coast playing in a tournament, East Coast, or anywhere in between and a coach, ref, or player would know who my dad is," said his daughter, Molly, 30, who competed for the University of Maryland. "It's pretty cool to feel like my dad is basically a celebrity within the sport – but don't tell him I said that."
That's because Ruth is humble to a fault, and the ultimate team player.
In fact, during an interview, Ruth wanted to make sure SkipShot's readers knew that the growth of Pennsylvania water polo wasn't really about him. "It's everybody," he said. "It's a whole lot of people doing good stuff. I'm just one part of it."
Perhaps, but there is also no one quite like Rudy Ruth.
Physically, he's towering. And vocally, he's unique.
When Ruth was a coach at Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pennsylvania, one of his former players, Chris Springer (1988-91), said, "No pep talk from Rudy would be complete without reference to playing like a 'bat out of West Lawn!'"
Unlike a lot of coaches, he didn't use profanity so "When you'd hear, 'Gee Whiz!' screamed in his deep booming voice, you'd get the point," Springer added.
"The worst word he would say was, 'Sugar' – the S-U word instead of the S-H word," recalled Tom Tracey, an aquatics director and girls' coach at Wilson High through 2015. "When you see a man that stands 6-foot-5, looks like a rock, and you hear him screaming 'Sugar' during games, it kinda sticks in your mind."
Furthermore, Ruth never strays from his philosophy – which is to treat others as you'd like to be treated. Respect the players. Respect the coaches. Respect the officials. Make it fun. Get all your players in the game. And, as he told Kevin Van Such who met him as a young coach and now serves as the head coach at the Haverford School and club director in Wissahickon, "Just make sure it's all about the kids."
Not surprisingly, as a coach, Ruth didn't believe in running up the score of a game. "A former [high school] teammate actually thought it was a rule that you were not allowed to beat another team by more than 10 goals," his daughter said.
As a man of faith, a former vice principal, and a superintendent he has a calm presence.
"He's very pragmatic in stressful situations," said Campbell.
"The maddest I've ever seen Rudy was one year in high school we were at Eastern championships staying in a hotel near Fordham University," said Springer, his former player. "We were hanging out in a room. Rudy stormed in saying that another team's coach saw us throwing trash out our window onto that coach's car below. Rudy held up several containers of McDonald's coffee creamers to prove the point. He was really laying into us and threatening to take us home when somebody finally got the courage to remind him that we had stopped at Pizza Hut – not McDonald's!  The lightbulb went off and Rudy stormed out of the room." When the boys looked out the window to see where he went, "none of us were surprised to see Rudy down on the street cleaning that guy's car."
How it all began
Ruth was born in Pennsylvania and grew up all over the US. He attended 10 schools from kindergarten through seventh grade. His high school didn't have water polo, but he swam sprints, and his swim coach at West Chester University used water polo to get his athletes in shape. Ruth fell in love with the physicality of it and played in a summer league in Reading between terms. Two years after graduating with a health and physical education major in 1982, he became a P.E. teacher and coach at Wilson Junior High. He saw a need for local teams to organize, and was asked to lead the charge.
Along the way, he coached the Wilson High boys' varsity to nine state titles (eight in a row from 1987-1994, and 1996), and rallied his wife, Susan, to be the assistant coach of the girls' team even though her entire water polo resume was: one game of inner-tube water polo at Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, New York. Yet under Susan's leadership, the girls' team placed among the top-four in the state nine years in a row (2006-2014).
One day, amid all those title runs, their third-grade son, Jack, asked, 'Dad, how come there is Little League baseball, little league soccer, even football, but there's no Little League water polo?"
"There just kinda isn't," Rudy replied, then quickly set out to change that.
Ruth dialed his connections and, together, they recruited elementary school kids, got caps, an affordable insurance plan, and came up with a club called Kingfish. He found donors, announced games, wrote newsletters, and after a year, Ruth thought, "I'm done."
But that fall, at Jack's fourth-grade open house, he saw his son's artwork. Jack had drawn himself and his little sister, Molly, in a pool and and wrote that his parents had started a water polo league that "was so much fun! I can't wait till next summer!"
The Ruths looked at each other and said, "Oh boy." So the Kingfish club continued and, at one point, had more than 500 players of all levels. Meanwhile, Ruth became dean of students at Wilson, vice principal, principal and, eventually, superintendent of the whole school district – while concurrently serving as the commissioner of Pennsylvania water polo.
"Usually, at that level, you're not doing that," Ruth said, but I loved it so much, I didn't want to NOT do that."
Now, at 62, Ruth still coaches, assists coaches, officiates, and is the water polo rep on the Pennsylvania Association of Interscholastic Athletics (PIAA) and the Zone 1 chair for NISCA, the National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association.
As commissioner of Pennsylvania water polo for 36 years (and counting), it means that Ruth has been a consistent resource any time there is a problem. It means providing structure for seasonal and league play. Under his leadership, the post-season experience has ramped up to the point where state championships are standing-room-only events with DJs, announcers, and awards. But perhaps most of all, it means fostering an esprit de corps among members.
In lay terms, "It means getting paid a whole lot of no money for volunteering a whole lot of time," said Tom Tracey.
His commitment and passion for the game have been infectious.  Many of Ruth's players have gone on to coach, officiate, and hold leadership positions in water polo.  Ruth – and his family – have so embodied the tenet of 'giving back' that it has been almost impossible not to follow his lead.
His son, Jack, 32, who went on to play for Princeton, said "Growing up, we would drive many hours just to run a practice at a random high school that was struggling with engagement. He would drive hours after work to ref a random game when someone called in sick. This is the stuff that kept the sport alive and allowed Pennsylvania to maybe triple the number of schools with a program."
Similarly, Molly Ruth said that as a club player for her dad, "he would volunteer me to help other teams as a sub, so instead of playing two games [as scheduled], I ended up playing like eight."
The Ruths would frequently house visiting teams or coaches to help them save money. The Ruth home became so full of water polo balls, caps, swimsuits, Kingfish tee shirts, mugs, and newsletters that one year for Halloween, Sue Ruth decorated the whole house with orange and black water polo gear.
As new teams were starting, Ruth would sometimes leave his high school practices to ref other games, Springer recalled. To give the newer teams experience, the Wilson players drove long distances by bus. And Ruth would sometimes have to coach newer coaches during these outings.
Ruth's never-ending hands-on leadership made him very persuasive.
"People like that have credibility because they don't say one thing and do something else," said Sharadin, who also made enormous contributions to spread water polo in Pennsylvania. "When you see somebody like that voluntarily helping, it's easier to garner followers than it is for somebody who's just kind of giving lip service."
"I can honestly say that I wouldn't be coaching if it weren't for Rudy," said Springer, who has been an assistant coach at Haverford School since 2013. "He had such a big impact on my life. I couldn't imagine not trying to pay it forward. Rudy's legacy in Pennsylvania water polo is terrific and cannot be overstated, but his impact on those that were lucky enough to play for him is even greater."
"It's not complicated," Ruth said. "The way we grew water polo is we tried to make the experience really positive for all the kids, really collegial and positive for all the coaches. And I just think that people know me well enough that if they ever needed anything, just call or text and I'll say, 'sure.'"
Â
