Water Polo

An outbreak of COVID-19 has caused the cancellation of the last month of the UC Santa Barbara women’s water polo season. The university announced the decision Monday. The Gauchos had three matches scheduled for April, including games outside the two-week window for quarantines, but the plug was pull...

Larry Rogers, who spent five decades coaching swimming and water polo at Bellarmine Prep in California, died on March 31. He was 74. Rogers has won more California Interscholastic Federation titles than any other coach, claiming 57 at Bellarmine from 1982 until he retirement in 2017. He also won wat...

Filmmaker John L. McLeod Looking to Go ‘Beyond’ in Telling Olympic Stories As a kid, John L. McLeod was entranced by the Olympics. Watching Bud Greenspan’s features of the Games, there was a mystique in the Olympics of the post-World War II era that McLeod, growing up in Canada, was drawn into. It w...

Olympic water polo player Ivo Trumbic died on March 12 at the age of 86 in Zagreb. The Croatian water polo player and coach was a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Trumbic was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale in 2005. Last year, he received th...

USA Water Polo is proud to announce the 37th induction class for the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame. All those from this year's five-member class are Olympic athletes who've combined to win nine medals competing in a total 15 Olympic Games. Tony Azevedo, a record five-time Olympian and 2008 Olympic sil...

Editor's Note: This is the final in a series of articles examining the health of the national governing body for U.S. water polo in the wake of Bahram Hojreh's criminal and civil sexual abuse cases and the coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in more than 500,000 American deaths. Other articles in...

In unraveling how USA Water Polo’s current leadership—including Board Chair Michael Graff and CEO Christopher Ramsey—have dominated U.S. polo for the past 15 years, the thread leads to Terence Ma. Second in command to former USAWP President Rich Foster, Ma was bounced out of the organization in 2007...

With a spot in the Olympics on the line Sunday at the Zwemcentrum Rotterdam, Toni Popadic—the backup goalie for the Croatian men’s water polo squad—delivered perhaps the biggest save of his national team career. Russia was leading 15-14 in third place match at the Olympic Games Qualification Tournam...

In a devastating blow to the tight-knit community of water polo players on the island of Puerto Rico, Jorge Gonzalez passed away last Friday at the age of 75. Among the first players to be recruited by Head Coach Harry Hauck to compete on the island’s nascent men’s team, Gonzalez was notable as one ...

Swim coach Dana Skelton and water polo coach John Tanner were two of eight coaches recognized as United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) coaches of the year Tuesday. Skelton was named the Developmental Coach of the Year for her work at First Colony Swim Team in Texas. Tanner, who coac...

Last month in an interview with Swimming World, USA Water Polo CEO Christopher Ramsey claimed his organization didn't need to pressure California politicians to reopen pools for polo in the Golden State. “I don’t see it as our position to lobby the state of California,” Ramsey said on January 8, ref...

Editor’s Note: erroneous reports out of Puerto Rico said that Harry Hauck, considered by most to be the grandfather of water polo on the island, had passed away after a lengthy illness. Swimming World inadvertently published an obituary to this effect. In fact, Coach Hauck is alive and—even though h...

Harry Hauck, universally acknowledged for establishing competitive water polo on the island of Puerto Rico, passed away Saturday at the age of 91. “Harry Hauck no doubt is the grandfather of the sport of water polo in Puerto Rico,” said Carlos Steffens, who represented the island in the 1975, 1979 a...

Restrictions on travel and public gathering due to the novel coronavirus forced the 2021 USA Water Polo General Assembly—typically a lively gathering of polo movers and shakers from all over America—to be held virtually last Saturday. Streamed on YouTube, with a live Zoom question and answer session...

Beginning in October of last year, USA Water Polo unleashed a shrewd social media campaign. #WaterPoloTough highlighted exceptional athletes as they displayed remarkable ability and resilience. Skillfully produced by the prominent British advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, the series of vignettes—c...

At the 2021 USA Water Polo General Assembly, William Smith, a long-time supporter of American polo, was unanimously elected as chairman of the USAWP board. Smith takes over from outgoing chairman Michael Graff, who after 15 years leading the U.S. national governing body for polo will term out of boa...

Events later today at the USA Water Polo General Assembly may shed light on divisive sexual abuse accusations that have roiled America’s national governing body for the sport. The organization’s biennial exercise in democracy, it is the first public event since Christopher Ramsey, USAWP’s Chief Exec...

Colorado Time Systems (CTS), a PlayCore company, is pleased to announce their continued partnership as the Official Timing and Scoring Partner of USA Water Polo. This long-running partnership remains in effect through 2022. As the Official Timing and Scoring Partner, Colorado Time Systems will provi...

Continuing Swimming World's exclusive interview with Christopher Ramsey, CEO of USA Water Polo, the conversation picks up with USAWP's executive director discussing financial challenges due to the cancellation of a majority of the organization's premier events—including the Junior Olympics, the worl...

Monmouth College (Ill.) announced Tuesday that it will discontinue its men’s and women’s water polo programs at the end of the 2020-21 season. Both programs were started in the last decade, with the men in 2012 and women in 2013. In a university statement, athletic director Roger Haynes cited, “a de...