Jim Solum

About Jim Solum

Dr. Jim Solum, DC is a former men's college water polo coach from Southern California. He is a 59-year old retired sports medicine chiropractor residing in Los Angeles, California, USA. Jim has one daughter, 26-year old Nicole, who ran track and field for the University of New Mexico. He remains active in the sport by holding water polo seminars, writing articles and giving private lessons on shooting. Jim started playing high school water polo in 1966 at Long Beach Jordan High School in Southern California where he was All Moore League in swimming and Jordan's High Athlete of the Year. He played two years at Long Beach City College, lettered both years, and helped win a California junior college state championship in water polo in 1970. At Cal State University Long Beach, he started and was a two-year varsity athlete. The university was 4th and 7th in the N.C.A.A.'s Championships during his years there. Dr. Solum has a B.A. in Sociology and a M.A. in Sociology in 1974 and 1977. Later he received a doctorate in Chiropractic from Pasadena College of Chiropractic in 1988. He taught part time at Long Beach City College in Physical Education Department for four years and was an assistant water polo coach during that time. At LBCC he came under the influence of the legendary water polo coach Monte Nitzkowski, coach of the bronze and silver medal US Men's water polo teams at two Olympic Games. Monte continued coaching into his seventies and was the 2000 US Olympic Men's Assistant Coach. At Huntington Beach High School and at Mira Costa High School in Southern California Dr. Solum was a walk on coach in the 1970's and early 80's coaching water polo and swimming. Dr. Solum was the men's head water polo coach at El Camino College and at Fullerton College. In 1981, he published the first article on the speed of the water polo shot as timed by a radar gun. He last coached at Corona Del Mar High School, Newport Beach, CA in 2004 as an assistant boy's water polo coach. In the mid 1970's he became life-long friends with Ricardo Azevedo, a Brazilian national team water polo player who had played at Long Beach Wilson, Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach. Ricardo later became a two-time Olympic men's water polo assistant coach and is the US Senior Men's coach before going to Italy to coach a professional water polo team. Ricardo Azevedo was renowned as an athlete for his creative shooting style and later as a great shooting coach. Ricardo taught Dr. Solum the fundamentals of shooting that the Europeans were using from 1975-2010. He is deeply indebted to Mr. Azevedo for all of the information and time that he spent talking and demonstrating the various shots and shooting principles. Dr. Solum currently is a private shooting coach and writes a monthly column called "The Shot Doctor" for the Water Polo Planet.com website. He has trained 4 Olympic players, 7 players on the US Senior National Team, and 50 Division I players. He can be reached at [email protected]