Dejan Udovicic - (Tag)

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor BERLIN, Germany. Perhaps overlooked in the focus on new rules and the positive feelings generated by the hometown German team’s success is that there is something else at stake here at the Europasportpark: four spots at the 2019 FINA World Water Polo C...

2019 was a year like no other for water polo. Not only did the Stanford men's program return to NCAA glory after almost two decades, the Cardinal women also won a national championship, making for a varsity polo sweep. Both the U.S. women's team (expected) and the American men (touch and go) qualifi...

A. E. Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” is an English 101 staple. Employing a simple rhyming scheme, anyone can easily follow Housman’s poetical path, culminating in a four-stanza punch line: Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honors out, Runners whom renown outran And the n...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor Over the past decade, FINA, the governing body for aquatics throughout the world, has regularly gathered water polo coaches, referees, administrators and other experts to take the temperature of water polo. Beginning yesterday in Hungary, representativ...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor One of the brightest young minds in American water polo is not at USC. Or Stanford. Or Cal or UCLA. Alex Rodriguez—known as “A-Rod,” just like the notorious former baseball player—is head coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Pomona-Pitzer, a Divisi...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor After an eight-month layoff, the U.S. Men’s Senior National Team is back in action. Last week the Americans traveled to the Kawana Water Aquatics Centre, just outside of Brisbane, Australia, for a five-day training camp and two test matches against the...

BROOKLYN, NY. It’s been more than a week since I returned from Lima, Peru for the 2019 Pan American Games. Following men’s and women’s water polo at Pan Ams was the most important tournament I’ve covered—so far—for one simple reason: events at Villa Maria del Triunfo Aquatics Complex represented a r...

Picking the best of anything is never easy. The best croissants in Paris, the best pizza in Chicago, the best pitcher in baseball — many of these decisions come down to personal preference. And are subject to endless second-guessing. Except when it comes to the best female water polo player in the w...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor It’s possible that Brad Schumacher never slows down. Once one of the fastest swimmers in the world, the 43-year-old now races around the globe as president of Kap7, one of the world’s largest suppliers of water polo equipment. His life is a far cry fro...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor The world’s largest sports tournament is now in full swing, with Russia hosting squads from 31 other nations in the 2018 FIFA World Cup. An interesting comparison to soccer (or football, as everyone outside of the United States calls it) is a sport not...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor A press release earlier today from Pro Recco, the Italian First Division water polo club, was a flash of promising news for Luca Cupido—and positive vibes for the U.S. Men’s Senior National Team as well. Formerly with the University of California at Be...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor BERLIN, Germany. There was a party at the Europa Sports Park Thursday night—even though the home team lost. Despite a narrow 10-9 defeat to Australia, by virtue of results against common Group A opponent Hungary, the host Germans attained the velvet bo...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor In an encouraging sign for Head Coach Dejan Udovicic as well as for American water polo fans, on Sunday the U.S. Men’s Senior Team defeated Australia 9-6 in the final of the 2018 FINA Intercontinental Cup in Auckland, New Zealand. Led by three goals fr...

LIMA, PERU. On Day Two of the 2019 Pan American Games, what at one point looked to be a blowout for the U.S. men’s water polo team turned into a dogfight late against a scrappy Canadian side. Thanks to five goals from Johnny Hooper and a handful of mistakes by Canada, the Americans were able to hold...

USA Water Polo Renews Contracts of Adam Krikorian, Dejan Udovicic Through 2028 Olympics USA Water Polo on Friday announced that it has extended the contracts of women’s national team coach Adam Krikorian and men’s team boss Dejan Udovicic through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Krikorian is in line t...

Editor's Note: This interview is from 2015—when the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation still included Long Beach State, Pacific, Pepperdine, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine, and the SoCal Invitational was yet to be renamed for the MPSF. Terry Schroeder is perhaps the most successful water polo player...

Three-Time U.S. Men’s Water Polo Olympian Alex Obert Retires Alex Obert, a three-time Olympian and member of the U.S. men’s bronze medal squad from Paris, announced his retirement Thursday. Obert won three gold medals at the Pan American Games. He reached two Super Finals, taking silver medals for t...

Growth Mindset Has Led Max Irving to Water Polo Stardom One wakeup call occasioned another for Max Irving. It was 2017, and Irving’s star was rising fast. He’d gone from a redshirt season at UCLA in 2013 to an All-American. That June brought his first U.S. national team call—in the FINA Intercontine...

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor BROOKLYN, NY. One of the more compelling stories of the 2016 men’s varsity water polo season was Harvard’s Cinderella-like run to the NCAA Men’s Tournament Final Four. The Crimson, who in 35 previous years of varsity play had never qualified for the po...

In a surprising upset Tuesday, the favored Serbians—who have won almost every major water polo title the past five years—were eliminated from title contention at the 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships. Spain, which had not beaten Serbia in World Championship play since 2009, stunned the defendin...