Tim Hutten remembers sitting with his Cal-Irvine water polo teammates, aspiring to be part of another team.

"I watched the gold medal match from the 2004 Olympic Games with my team during a team meeting once and I said to myself, 'That's where I want to be,' " Hutten said in an email. "I had no doubt I would be there someday."

Four years later in Beijing, he was on the Olympic team that shocked opponents on its way to a silver medal, marking the first time since the 1988 Games in Seoul that the Americans had a podium finish. After those Games, Hutten played professionally for the first time with a team in Vouilagmeni, Greece.

Now he is back with many of those teammates this week at the world championships in Rome. Team USA took 10 players from last year's Olympic team to Italy as part of its 14-man roster for the world championships.

"It is always difficult to come back together as a team after playing most of the year apart," said Hutten, the 2008 national college player of the year. "The first few games we play when coming back are always a bit sloppy but as time goes by we are able to make adjustments to start to play again as a single unit."

That early sloppiness is a sacrifice top American water polo players have to make to stay at the top of their individual games.

"Since the USA doesn't have a professional league, all of our players have to go to Europe and are usually spread out in different countries," Hutten said. "This is a disadvantage we have compared to some countries whose players are playing with each other most of the year."

Still, Team USA quickly has come together and has proven to be competitive in the preliminary rounds, winning its first two matches in its four-team pool and assuring itself a spot in the next round.

The United States has participated in all 10 of the FINA World Championships, which were held for the first time in 1973, but has never received a medal. After finishing fifth in two of the first three world championships, Team USA had its best-ever effort with a fourth-place finish in Madrid in 1988.

But with Hutten and other players who were able to capture an Olympic medal in Beijing, there is now a sense of hope that the Americans can garner a world medal, too.

Hutten said the team had gotten comfortable together by the time the world championships opened July 20 in Italy.

Right now, we are a good team," said Hutten, 24, who hails from Seal Beach, Calif. "The only way to become a great team is to build on our past success and continue to find ourselves on the podium."

Hutten, who is 6-5 and 215 pounds, does his part from the 2-Meter Defense position, where he started in the first two games of the world championships. Among his responsibilities is defending the opponent's center forward.

"When defending the center, there are many things you have to worry about, such as wrestling with your man, keeping him from getting a good position, making sure he's not hitting you or grabbing you anywhere he shouldn't be, and all the while keeping track of the ball and telling your teammates what you want them to do," Hutten said. "It is a difficult position to play and not one for the timid."

The assignment is handled within the context of an effective team defense.

"What put us over the edge last year was the fact that everyone contributed and we played truly as a team, not individuals," Hutten said. "If we can continue to do this, there is no doubt that we will have success."

 All Hutten and the rest of Team USA need for motivation is to look back at their achievement from Beijing.

"I think finishing second at the Olympics earned us some respect internationally and also within the United States," Hutten said. "I think it also gave us a great deal of confidence in knowing that we have the potential to beat any team out there."

For Hutten, one of the most memorable moments from Beijing was when Team USA beat Serbia in the semifinal match to secure a spot in the gold-medal game. That moment marked an "incredible feeling of accomplishment'' for the team, Hutten said.

"Our friends and family were in the stands just going nuts, so happy for us,'' Hutten said. "I remember one of our players (Peter Hudnut) got his face cut twice in that game and was bleeding all over the place but he was smiling and celebrating with the rest of us. That is how we all felt, overcome."

Hutten is accustomed to success in the pool. A high school All-American, he led Los Alamitos High School to the California state championship game. After earning second-team All-American honors at Cal-Irvine in 2005, he was a first-team choice in both 2007 and 2008.

Hutten was named Player of the Year and Tournament Most Valuable Player of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation-a league including water polo powers such as Stanford, USC, Pepperdine and UCLA-as a junior before receiving the Peter J. Cutino Award as the nation's top collegiate player in his senior year.

Along the way, Hutten became part of the National Team program and was part of the gold-medal winning team at the 2006 ASUA Cup in Mexico City.

And, of course, he achieved his main goal by making the Olympic team.

"Beijing was a fantastic experience," Hutten said. "Just being part of something as big and special as the Olympics was awesome. It was unique and unlike anything I have ever been a part of.

"Winning the silver medal was bittersweet at the time, but looking back on the whole thing, it really was a great accomplishment for our team and for USA Water Polo."

Now Hutten and the Americans hope to build on that success in Rome --- and beyond.

"The team's expectations going into the world championships were to come into every game with the intention of winning and playing every game with the intensity and concentration of a gold-medal match," Hutten said.
 
Matt Thomas also contributed to this report.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Tom Robinson is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.