Top Coaches Handicap Peter J. Cutino Award, Given to Water Polo’s Best

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Main Dining Room at The Olympic Club. Photo Courtesy: Gary Crook

BY Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor

In my mind it’s the most prestigious award—maybe in all of water polo. I say that because the people behind the Cutino Award—The Olympic Club, number one—it’s a first-class event. The Olympic Club is a prestigious, old-school club. They do it right.

Adam Kirkorian, Head Coach, U.S. Senior Women’s National Team

This Saturday in San Francisco, The Olympic Club will present the Peter J. Cutino Award to the top male and female collegiate water polo players in America, as determined by the head coaches from the nation’s Division I programs. As Kirkorian points out, it is his sport’s most coveted award, named for the deceased University of California Berkeley and The Olympic Club coach considered by many to be the greatest in U.S. water polo history.

This year, four candidates were nominated for the men—typically there are three but a tie in the men’s nominees made for a quartet—and three for the women. The men’s side is represented by two pairs of players from the most storied collegiate rivals in the sport: Blake Edwards and McQuin Baron of USC; and reining Cutino Award winner Garett Danner and Ryder Roberts of UCLA.

On the women’s side, Rachel Fattal of UCLA, Ashleigh Johnson of Princeton and Maggie Steffens of Stanford were nominated. All three were teammates on the U.S. team that struck gold in the 2016 Olympics.

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Photo Courtesy: Gary Crook

Like many awards of its kind, the Cutino is a source of contentious debate regarding what characteristics determine the country’s best. Is it the top player—based upon goals scored—on the country’s best team? Or are there other measures that determine what makes a player great?

I recently asked top coaches how they decide who is Cuitno-worthy. In addition to Krikorian, the respondents included: Brandon Brook, head coach for UCLA’s women’s team; Coralie Simmons, head coach for Cal’s women’s team—and the only one of the coaches to have won a Cutino; John Tanner, head coach for Stanford’s women’s team; and Jovan Vavic, head coach for USC’s men’s and women’s team.

Given the timing, our discussion was particularly focused on the sport’s best female players.

No Vote, but Kirkorian’s Opinion Carries Weight

As head coach for the U.S. women’s team, Adam Kirkorian may no longer have a vote, but his perspective is vital. Not only did he coach Fattal, Johnson and Steffens at the Rio Games, from 1999 – 2009 he was head coach of UCLA’s men’s and women’s programs, leading the Bruins to 11 NCAA titles (eight women’s title and three men’s).

Krikorian identified leadership and excellence on both sides of the ball as primary in his consideration of what makes a Cutino Award winner.

“The thing is people always look from the outside at goals scored,” he said while attending the 2017 NCAA Women’s Water Polo Tournament. “They don’t take into consideration the way someone plays defense. The way they lead. How many assists they have. The steals.”

The Team USA coach, whose squads have captured back-to-back Olympic gold medals (2012, 2016), then invoked a basketball analogy.

“If I compare this to the NBA, there’s a lot of talk about Russell Westbrook, James Harden and who’s the MVP of the league. In my mind, LeBron James is the MVP every year. And maybe the next guy is Kawhi Leonard,” Krikorian said.

He also addressed a question about one of his players not on the ballot. Maddie Musselman, a teenage star in Rio with 12 goals, was even better as a freshman this season for UCLA. With three scores in the NCCA title match, Musselman totaled 69 for the season, breaking the Bruin record for freshmen by one, set in 2013 by Fattal.

Photo Courtesy: Gary Crooks

USC’s Stephania Haralabidis, 2016 Cutino Award winner. Photo Courtesy: Gary Crooks

Krikorian agreed that adding Musselman and others to the Cutino mix makes for a better discussion.

“The reason why it’s so great to hear this is it means that there are many qualified candidates—to take nothing away from Ashley and Rachel and Maggie—I think everyone knows the respect I have for them,” Krikorian said. “I think you can easily make the argument, not just for Maddie but for Brigitta Games, Stephania Haralabidis or Dora Antal.”

“That adds excitement and I think it adds value to the award itself when it can go in so many different directions,” he added.

For Vavic, Rising to the Occasion is What Counts Most

USC’s Jovan Vavic, who coached Haralabidis, last year’s Cutino winner, was blunt about what makes a great player.

“I always vote for a player who makes their teammates better,” he said in April during the 2017 MPSF Women’s Tournament. “I vote for a player who helps the team win. Unless there is a significant player out there who is outplaying everybody, I usually vote for a player who helps their team win a title.”

Key to Vavic—who over two decades has won a total of 14 NCAA titles (nine men’s and five women’s) and coached 12 Cutino award winners—is performing on the sport’s biggest stage.

“I value the player most how they play when it counts,” he said. “We need to see which of the players lead their team to the final and who’s going to be the toughest and best in the end.”

A Cutino Winner Chimes In

An interesting perspective on the award was provided by Cal head coach Coralie Simmons, who in 2000 won the award while playing for Krikorian at UCLA.

Saying that the game has changed since her time at UCLA (1996-2001), Simmons, who was also a member of Team USA at the 2000 Sydney Games, admitted that players today are bigger and more physical.

“A lot of physicality, the grabbing, the wrestling elements which I think in some respect are exciting but it’s a totally different game,” she said.

Given that she has a “decent eye for what it takes to be a good teammate,” Simmons said that It’s easy to see when someone’s working for the team of for themselves in the water.

“[A player] may be a hot shot but that doesn’t’ necessarily make you a champion with your teammates,” she added.

The best players have to have an “X-factor,” to win. “They have the stats, they also have the ultimate teammate philosophy and exude that when you play because if you don’t you’re not going to get the vote.”

UCLA’s Brooks: It’s an MVP Award

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Rachal Fattal. Photo Courtesy: UCLA Athletics

Like his peers, Brooks—who before he ascended to the Bruins top women’s job was a goalie for two U.S. men’s Olympic teams (2004, 2008)—believes that a Cutino winner must be good at everything.

“They have to be great offensively—that’s not just scoring goals—it’s setting up your teammates,” he said at the MPSF Championships. “I think you have to be great defensively as well.”

Leadership was also an important metric for him.

“You have to prove to the voters that you have impacted your team—and lead your team; leadership is an undervalued characteristic,” he said. “You have to lead your team to success.”

Fattal, who played for Brooks for four of the last five years—last year she redshirted to join Team USA—embodies almost all of the winning characteristics identified by all the coaches I spoke with. She is a superb two-way player who finished her UCLA career first all-time in steals and second in goals.

Her one failing? Not winning a national championship. In 2014, 2015 and again this season, UCLA dropped the NCAA title game to Stanford and the Cardinal’s Cutino candidate, Maggie Steffens.

Steffens is Her Coach’s Ideal Player

When the game is on the line, it’s clear who Stanford head coach John Tanner believes is the best player on his squad. With 9 seconds left and the Bruins and Cardinal tied at 7-all in the 2017 NCAA Women’s Championship Final, one player rose above all other. Maggie Steffens, tightly guarded by Fattal, somehow not only got the ball, but delivered the game-winning goal to give her team it’s third national championship in four years.

Tanner, who I spoke with two weeks before Steffens epic performance—in the NCAA final she scored three goals and made a key steal with 14 second remaining to set up her final goal—was effusive when speaking about the Cardinal co-captain.

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Maggie Steffens. Photo Courtesy: Stanford Athletics

“Maggie’s influence goes so far beyond what she adds in terms of how she specifically plays,” Tanner said. “She is a leader in every sense of the word, and makes everyone around her better.

“Her contributions are so far beyond what you see when she’s in the game playing,” he added. “It’s happening on the bench during games, happening before the games, when we’re getting ready to play and every day in training. Her desire to get better every day makes her an incredible role model.”

Tanner also spoke about Steffen’s day-in, day-out consistency.

“[Maggie] is not at all driven by results but by each step along the way,” he said. “She embraces that daily challenge and has the same enthusiasm at 6 o’clock in the morning in the weight room as she does with a minute left in a tie game.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that star’s dedication to the sport mirror Tanner’s idea of what defines a Cutino winner.

“The Cutino Award—Pete Cutino is such an icon in our sport, and he embraced that you’re only as good as your last workout, your last game, and that hunger to just keep getting better,” he said.

Which is why it’s a near-certainty that Saturday night Steffens will be announced as this year’s most deserving player—male or female —to be awarded a Cutino as the sport’s best.

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