A New Chapter

I want to begin this new chapter with a story that transpired last week during our week of training with Serbia. We were playing Serbia at Stanford in the third game of a three game series. We had lost one game and tied the second. Both games were very competitive and the training had been very good. If you remember from last year when we went to Serbia, we were crushed by them and we never really challenged them. This week was different. Every scrimmage was competitive and we definitely knew that we belonged in the same pool with them. Anyway, back to the story. The stadium was packed with an estimated crowd of 2,500 water polo fans. After the introductions they played the Serbian national anthem and then it came time for the Star Spangled Banner. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having problems with the stereo system. There was a bit of an uncomfortable minute and then a few fans in the front row began singing our anthem. After a few seconds the rest of the crowd joined in and sang our beautiful national anthem. I have to say that in all my years of playing and coaching and hearing our anthem being played for us this was the most moving and meaningful of all. It gave me goose bumps and brought tears to my eyes at the same time. Our players and coaches gave the fans a great round of applause and then it was time to play.

The game was a good one. We played a solid game on offense but gave them too many easy goals off of rebounds and slam dunks from the post on their extra man. Our defense was not great but I am sure it will get better and better as we spend more time together. Midway through the fourth quarter we were down by two and it did not look too good. We made a nice run down the stretch and tied the game with a minute and a half to go. We actually had a great opportunity in the last 30 seconds but we missed on an extra man attempt. The game ended in a 13 – 13 tie. We have come a long way and matching the Serbs offensive power is no easy task. This was definitely a good week of training for us and without Tony and Tim many of our other guys really stepped up. As we move forward in this quadrennial, I will not forget the powerful rendition of our Star Spangled Banner. It was a moving experience. Perhaps the only better rendition will be played for us in London when we stand up on the gold medal platform.

It is time to get to work on that dream. Here we are in Montenegro getting ready for the World League Super Finals. We arrived two days ago and have been training at a beautiful new $ 5 million Euro facility here in the capital of Montenegro called Podgorica. This is a nice little city with a huge love for water polo. The pool complex (2 pools and room for 4,000 screaming fans) was built in 100 days. They opened the pool 4 days ago with a scrimmage between the Montenegro “A” and “B” team. The scrimmage drew a crowd of 3,000 people. Needless to say, these games will be well attended. We are in the A group with Italy, Japan and Serbia. The B group is Montenegro, Croatia, Australia and South Africa. Tomorrow we open up with Italy in the first game of the tournament.

I am excited about the tournament. We have 10 out of 13 of our Olympians back in the pool. Tony Azevedo and Tim Hutton have joined us here for the tournament. Their European club teams played until early June so we decided to just to meet them over here in Europe. For the rest of the team, it was a long trip over here. We flew through Frankfurt, Belgrade and then into Prodgorica. Many of the guys arrived feeling a little sick. Ryan Bailey has been in his room for 2 days. He saw a local doctor today that thinks he may have the swine flu. Anyway, he came out of his cave (room) today and swam a little. He said that he felt better so we will see how he wakes up tomorrow. Jesse Smith is also feeling a little under the weather and John Mann is feeling pretty beat up. Hopefully, we will wake up and be ready to go tomorrow.

I am reading Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s book, called The Gold Standard, it is the story of the 2008 USA Olympic Basketball team. He has some great team building ideas and thoughts that will definitely come in handy for us as grow together over the next four years. One of the “gold standards” that he talks about is “No excuses” which was also a big part of the team we became last year. Tomorrow will become another test of this standard. We may not be at our best - but I believe we are good enough to still beat Italy. The rest of the preliminary round has us facing Japan and then Serbia.

Off to bed to dream about the “miracles” to come.

See you at the pool.

Coach