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| Me coaching my first game as Co-Head Coach of Pepperdine |
In my last blog post I wrote about my wonderful trip to Washington D.C. to meet the President, Vice President and First Lady of the United States of America. After my trip to Washington D.C. my life has been a rollercoaster. My wife is pregnant with our first baby girl and I have been figuring out my next move as a professional, water polo player. Me and my wife’s original plan was for me to go and play professionally overseas again. As I have explained in my previous blogs, I have played professional water polo for the last 3 years leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games. After the 2012 Olympic Games I received an offer to play in Romania for the club team Oradea. Oradea is one of the top club water polo teams in Europe which competes for the European League Championships.
This would have been an amazing experience, but I always say everything happens for a reason. Right before me and my wife Laura made our decision to accept my contract to play in Oradea, Romania I received a phone call from the Athletic Director of Pepperdine University. He informed me that there was a job opening to be Interim Co-Head Coach for the 2012 season. After the 2012 Season, Terry Schroeder who was my Olympic Team coach would be coming back to be Head Coach. There were tons of emotions running through my mind at the time of this phone call. Obviously I was extremely happy that they were considering me for the job, but also I was torn because I wanted to continue playing overseas professionally. After a lot of thought, me and my wife decided to take the Interim Co-Head Coaching job at Pepperdine University.
One of the reason’s I decided to take the job at Pepperdine University is because it is where I went to school and played water polo. Also it is a program and university where I would like to build a career out of coaching with Terry Schroeder. Terry was my Head Coach throughout my college career and also was my head coach for the 2008 Olympic Games and 2012 Olympic Games.
I took over the Pepperdine coaching job right before their first game of the season. We have had some incredible wins and are building the program back to being one of the top college water polo teams in the Nation. We started the season ranked 8th nationally and currently we are ranked 4th in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rankings. My goal this year is to prepare this team to be at their best by the end of the year for the MPSF Tournament and get a birth to the NCAA Championship Game and win a championship. Pepperdine has not been in or won a NCAA Championship since I last played there in 1997. We won the 1997 National Championship and I was named one of 3 MVP’s of the game. I know that this year we have a shot to win a championship. Also when Terry comes back next season as head coach he will bring a huge wealth of knowledge for the game and with me being his assistant coach we will be a great coaching staff that plans to lead our team to many NCAA Championships in the future.
To all my readers, please follow along with the Pepperdine Waves Water Polo program and support us on our road to a NCAA Championship. I will keep you posted as the season goes on. Thank you all for your support.