The US has sent a men’s water polo team to the Olympic Games 24 times since 1904. They have never won a gold medal. NANTERRE, FRANCE - AUGUST 07: Members of Team United States celebrate winning the Men's Quarterfinal ... More match between Team United States and Team Australia in a penalty shoot-out on day twelve of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Paris La Defense Arena on August 07, 2024 in Nanterre, France. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) Getty Images In 1904 at the St. Louis games, water polo was an exhibition sport only–and Team USA did win gold. And silver and bronze. That’s right, Team USA was first, second, and third because only US teams were entered. The gold team was the New York Athletic Club (NYAC), the silver team was the Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) and the bronze team was the Missouri Athletic Club (MAC). Water Polo Team of the New York Athletic Club. Photograph engraving published 1892. Original edition ... More is from my own archives. Copyright has expired and is in Public Domain. A European Affair European countries since then have dominated Olympic water polo. Hungary leads the way with nine gold medals, followed by Great Britain with 4 gold medals and Italy and Yugoslavia with three gold medals each. And Serbia has emerged in the 20th century as a powerhouse winning gold medals in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Hungarian players pose on the podium during the medal ceremony for the men's water polo gold medal ... More match at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 24, 2008. Hungary won the gold and the US bagged the silver medal. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR (Photo credit should read FRED DUFOUR/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images MORE FOR YOU Bitcoin ‘Going To Take Over’—Tesla CEO Elon Musk Backs Shock $40 Trillion U.S. Dollar Collapse Warning Amid Price Boom Everything To Know About ‘Wicked: For Good’—And How To Watch The Trailer Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club Flagged For 18 Health Violations In Latest Inspection—Earned Lowest Grade In County The US Olympic Team is the only non-European team to ever even win an Olympic medal. That means that over the past 124 years Olympic teams from Asia, Australia, Africa and all the other America’s have been shut out! Europe’s dominance in water polo comes down to several ingredients: (a) Deep-rooted systems: elite domestic leagues (b) strong youth development (c) government and club investment and (d) a cultural reverence for the sport in countries like Hungary, Serbia, and Italy. Local leagues draw good crowds and media attention, and players are treated as stars. A technician waits before the Men's water-polo preliminary round Group B match Montenegro vs Croatia ... More on July 22, 2009 at the FINA World Swimming Championships in Rome. AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images As a result many players from the US team now migrate to Europe to play for one of these professional teams following college. Approximately 17-18 former US Olympians are playing for various European clubs at this time trying to elevate and fine tune their game in time for the LA 2028 Games where they will then compete against their former European teammates! Close But No Cigar So since 1904 (in twenty two attempts) no US water polo team has ever finished higher than silver. Six times American teams have won silver. Starting in 1984, at the last LA Olympics, Team USA would win its first silver medal ever led by a legend in the sport: Terry Schroeder. 1987: Terry Schroeder in action. Mandatory Credit: Bud Symes /Allsport Getty Images A four-time U.S. Olympic water polo player from Santa Barbara, Schroeder is immortalized in bronze outside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, his nude torso standing tall for the idealized, universal Olympic athlete. He was the model for the male statue that was bolted into place outside the stadium’s peristyle end in June 1984 and serves as a meeting place for countless football, soccer and concert fans. Life-sized bronze nude statues by sculptor Robert Graham, depicting female and male athletes atop a ... More post-and-lintel frame Olympic Gateway for the 1984 Summer Olympics, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, 1984. The models for the statues were Guyanese-American long jumper Jennifer Inniss and American water polo player Terry Schroeder. (Photo by Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Getty Images “I don’t go down that way a whole lot,” says Schroeder, a chiropractor, longtime Pepperdine water polo coach, and part-time assistant to the U.S. water polo team.. “But I have patients who come in and say, ‘I was at the Coliseum and I saw you down there.’ And I think, ‘Oh, great.’ How did Schroeder end up posing for a bronze statue for the 1984 Games and enduring ribbing from teammates that goes on even now? For starters, the United States never took part in the 1980 Summer Olympic Games. Merging athletics and politics for reasons many still don't understand, President Jimmy Carter announced in 1980 that the United States would boycott the coming summer's Olympic Games. This altered the lives of Schroeder and many other athletes. "The boycott in `80 really changed a lot of things," Schroeder said. "It changed the way I thought about the Olympic Games, about the sport of water polo and what it meant to me in my life, it was kind of a big crossroads for sure. It made me think about what I really wanted and what I was getting out of this and why I was really doing it.” While the United States was among the favorites in 1984, it didn't mean things would be easy. That said Team USA rolled early on, downing Greece 12-5, Brazil 10-4, and Spain 10-8 in preliminary play. In the final round things got a little tighter. Team USA edged the Netherlands 8-7, toppled Australia 12-7 and on August 9 defeated West Germany 8-7 to approach the medal round undefeated. They would take on rival and fellow gold medal favorite, Yugoslavia. Malibu, CA - 1984: Men's water polo USA vs. West Germany, Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool, at the 1984 ... More Summer Olympics, August 9, 1984. (Photo by Rob Brown /Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images) Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images "In the final we were ahead 5-2, knowing we had that game. He continued, "that feeling of being ahead 5-2 and knowing we had that shot to win the gold medal and I had a goal taken away at the end by an offensive call," laments Schroeder. Then Yugoslavia scored three unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to force a 5-5 draw, winning the gold medal on goal differential. Terry Schroeder would go on to do a lot in the game of water polo. After making his long-awaited Olympic debut in 1984 and leading his squad to a silver medal, he would earn another silver at the 1988 Olympic Games and come painfully close to a third-straight medal at the 1992 Games in Spain. Starting in 1986 he became head coach at Pepperdine, his alma mater; he guided the team to the pinnacle of the game at that level, an NCAA crown, in 1997. He returned to the National Team scene in the mid-2000s and took over in 2007 as head coach of a down-on-its-luck Senior National Team led by a rising star by the name of Tony Azevedo. Water Polo: 2008 Summer Olympics: USA coach Terry Schroeder with team in huddle during Men's Water ... More Polo Preliminary Group B vs Serbia at Yingdong Natatorium. Beijing, China 8/14/2008 CREDIT: John Biever (Photo by John Biever /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set Number: X80732 TK2 R1 F29 ) Sports Illustrated via Getty Images Tony The Tiger Considered perhaps the greatest men's water polo player the United States has ever seen, Tony Azevedo, born in Brazil and raised in California into a water polo family dynasty, was first coached by his dad, Ricardo—a longtime player and coach at the US National Team level. 29 Sep 2000: Tony Azevedo of the USA in action in the Mens Water Polo Quarter Finals against Russia ... More at the Ryde Aquatic Centre on Day 14 of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. \ Mandatory Credit: Robert Cianflone /Allsport Getty Images Azevedo would make his Olympic debut as a player in the 2000 Sydney Games, just months removed from his senior prom. Azevedo would go on to Stanford and win two NCAA championships and a record four-straight Cutino Award honors as the college game's best player. He returned to the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. In 2008, he would captain a U.S. team that returned to the Olympic podium for the first time in 20 years, claiming a silver medal at the Beijing Games. He continued to serve as captain at the next two Olympic Games in London in 2012 and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Azevedo is fourth all-time in Olympic water polo history, with 61 goals scored overall. RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 14: Tony Azevedo of the USA in action during the USA vs Italy ... More Waterpolo group match at Julio de Lamare Aquatics Centre on August 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images) Getty Images Ben Hallock is a two-time Olympian who was a key player for Team USA in the 2024 Games in Paris. Hallock was a California state champion in high school and an NCAA champion at Stanford in 2019. That year also marked his second in a row winning the Cutino Award as the top men’s college player in the sport. TOKYO, JAPAN - AUGUST 08: Ben Hallock of Team United States on attack during the Men’s ... More Classification 5th-6th match between Croatia and the United States on day sixteen of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Tatsumi Water Polo Centre on August 08, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images) Getty Images But Hallock chose to leave Stanford before his final season to play professional water polo for Pro Recco in Italy. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound center is now in his fifth season with Recco, where he’s able to fine-tune his game by playing so many games against some of the best players in the world. Ben Hallock (Pro Recco) - Nicolas Costantin Bicari (AN Brescia) during the Waterpolo Italian Serie A ... More match Final 1st / 2nd place - race 3 - Pro Recco vs AN Brescia on May 28, 2022 at the Sant'Anna in Recco, Italy (Photo by Danilo Vigo/LiveMedia/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images “In the U.S. the highest level is pretty much college,” Hallock, originally of Westlake Village, California, said. “Here, you have older players. You have grown men doing this for a living. It’s the reps and amount of play you get,” he said. “It’s the quality and the strength of everyone around you and the amount of games you play. It’s consistently been a humbling experience. If you don’t bring everything out there, then you get humbled.” NANTERRE, FRANCE - AUGUST 11: Bronze Medalists of Team United States pose following the Men’s Water ... More Polo medal ceremony after the Men's Gold Medal match between Team Serbia and Team Croatia on day sixteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Paris La Defense Arena on August 11, 2024 in Nanterre, France. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images) Getty Images If you want to beat the best you have to play with the best. Hallock and most of his teammates from the Paris 2024 team have been playing in Europe for pro teams all over the continent. I interviewed one of them, Dylan Woodhead, a 6’-7” defender who has been playing in Athens Greece. Dylan, Ben and Team USA are currently back together training in California as this story is being published and I hope to catch a practice or watch them play an exhibition match against the Australian Olympic Team. Team USA will once again have its work cut out in 2028 at the LA Olympic Games. Will this be the Games where they finally get past Hungary, Serbia and the other European powers to claim a gold medal? I certainly hope so! Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions