He was a scoring frenzy, a one-man tour de force who raised the level of those around him, ignited the sporting spirit of a campus long absent of much to get excited about and made literal and figurative waves by lifting a historically struggling program to CIF prominence while leaving his statistical signature upon state chronicle.
A 6-foot, 185-pound muscled phenom with a lighting bolt for a right arm, he took a lightly regarded program and put it on the map.
Along the way of four seasons of scoring parades and CIF triumph, Hoover High senior Hakop Kaplanyan provided record-breaking revelry, clutch histrionics and left a school and an area as a three-time All-Area Boys' Water Polo Player of the Year, as voted for the third consecutive time by the sports editors and writers of the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader, La Cañada Valley Sun and Pasadena Sun.
"We were happy to have him here all four years and he made everybody around him good," says Jack Van Patten, Hoover's athletic director. "What he did puts us out there.