Jason Falitz is no stranger to the Bruins.
With over eight years of experience coaching in Westwood, the Burbank native has served as the associate head coach of UCLA men’s water polo for the past six seasons.
But when former women’s assistant coach Christopher Lee retired from coaching in 2021 following his third season with the blue and gold and two decades coaching at the collegiate level, a new opportunity opened for Falitz.
Joining coach Adam Wright in leading both UCLA men’s and women’s water polo, Falitz began his first full-time season with the women’s team earlier this year.
“I enjoy working with him, and the girls enjoy working with him,” Wright said. “For me too, it streamlines things. We’ve been together a long time, and it just works well.”
In Falitz’s first year with the Bruins serving as assistant coach in 2015, UCLA men’s water polo posted a perfect 30-0 record en route to a national championship. After Wright was hired to coach the women’s team in 2017, Falitz was promoted to associate head coach for the men’s squad.
Now in his first season with the women, the Bruins are off to a 15-0 start with a win over then-No. 1 USC and a chance to repeat history.
Two-time All-American senior center Ava Johnson said Falitz serves as the perfect counterpart to Wright.
“He and Adam really balance each other out,” Johnson said. “He knows exactly what Adam is looking for as a coach, and he really brings the best out of Adam, which is something that we really admire about him.”
When the pandemic pushed the men’s 2020 season timeline to the beginning of the new year, Wright was forced to coach the men’s and women’s teams at the same time.
A week after the men’s team claimed Westwood’s most recent national championship in March, the women’s squad was set to travel north to face No. 2 Stanford – a team it had dropped six straight meetings against. Falitz joined the team for the trip.
“The girls got to work with him a little bit last year when Chris and (assistant coach James Robinson) were out when we were up at Stanford,” Wright said. “So he was with us for a couple of weeks.”
Junior utility Abbi Hill said she’s noticed similarities between Falitz and Wright now that the former has been with the women’s team for an extended period of time.
“They talk the same, they know the game just as well as each other, and they know the system very well,” Hill said. “He’s really funny, and he has a great personality. He’s willing to talk to us and joke around with us.”
As a player, Falitz scored a state-record 26 goals in a single game at John Burroughs High School, ranked top five in California history in goals at the time of graduating, and was named the 2006 Los Angeles Valley College Male Athlete of the Year.
Redshirt senior attacker Maddie Musselman – who returned to the Bruins after a two-year hiatus to prepare for the Olympics – said Falitz is always willing to help players improve.
“Anytime I ask him a question, he knows the answer and has a really unique perspective on the game,” Musselman said. “He fits in well, and we like him around. The way that Adam and Jason work together is obviously really special.”
Drawing from his playing experience as a two meter, Falitz works with the Bruins’ centers and goalkeepers. As UCLA’s starting center, Johnson said her time with Falitz has helped improve her defense, get in proper position, and avoid sticky situations.
“As a center, I have really been craving some center attention, and Jason is a phenomenal center coach,” Johnson said. “Jason has been a really great outlet for me, just through my development as a player on the pool deck and outside the pool deck.”
Johnson added that Falitz’s leadership outside the pool has filled a hole in the team and made the group that much better.
“These times are so uncertain – we’re in person with class, we’re not in person, COVID is coming and going,” Johnson said. “He’s just been a really great resource for us to reach out to when things are tough.”
