The rap icon as soon as had solely a obscure consciousness of water polo, as he’d seen Olympic matches on tv. But Flav has a brand new appreciation for the game, marveling on the immense stamina required to play it, after not too long ago signing a five-year sponsorship deal to function the official hype man for the U.S. girls’s and males’s nationwide water polo groups.
“What kind of relationship does rap have with water polo? None,” mentioned Flav.
Until now.
How the collaboration got here collectively is well-documented: Maggie Steffens, the U.S. girls’s crew’s longtime captain, posted a photograph of the gamers on her Instagram in May with a caption outlining challenges the athletes usually face, together with that gamers sometimes work a number of jobs whereas pursuing their Olympic goals. She known as on her followers to observe and help girls’s sports activities.
Flav, who mentioned his supervisor initially flagged the publish, responded to the decision, pledging his help. Thus, an unprecedented partnership was born. He and Steffens appeared together last Monday on “CBS Mornings,” the place Flav introduced he would give $1,000 to every crew member and a Virgin Voyage cruise to the squad.
The 65-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer advised The Athletic he plans to attend the Paris Games, cheering on the crew as they intention for a fourth straight Olympic gold medal, a feat that has not but been completed by any males’s or girls’s water polo crew.
“I’m there to hype them up. I’m there to attempt to get them into that spirit of successful that fourth gold medal,” Flav mentioned with a confidence befitting his function. “… And I do know we are able to do it. We’re gonna get it.”
Flav additionally mentioned he plans to attend the ladies’s crew’s last pre-Olympic residence match towards Hungary. He wrote in a publish on X he’ll be at Tuesday’s match in Berkeley, Calif., and can take photographs and signal autographs “earlier than and after the sport however not through the sport” so he can keep locked in.
Imma be on the sport on Tuesday,,, I might be taking photographs and signing autographs earlier than and after the sport however not through the sport,,, all of us right here to cheer on these girls
— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) July 3, 2024
“I’m making an attempt to get as many individuals as I can concerned,” he mentioned. “Hopefully what I’m doing will open up the doorways for different celebrities like myself to assist sponsor these Olympic groups, as a result of these (athletes) are on the market busting their butts to make the United States look good.”
The U.S. girls’s water polo crew has welcomed the extra eyeballs as they go for an Olympic file. Coach Adam Krikorian, who has guided the United States to extra Olympic golds than any coach on any crew in girls’s water polo, known as it “a sport that’s been ravenous for consideration and on the lookout for notoriety.”
“We are a crew that looks like, at occasions, we go unnoticed,” he mentioned. “And so, when you’ve got somebody who’s within the highlight share their love and their ardour for our crew, it’s touching. We find it irresistible. We embrace it. We hope it conjures up others to hop on.”
Krikorian mentioned he doesn’t thoughts if Flav’s curiosity encourages a bandwagon group to comply with their journey this summer season: “We’ll take ’em all. You didn’t should be with us at first.”
What any new followers might be rallying round is a squad synonymous with success. Since he was employed in 2009, Krikorian and the U.S. girls have gone on a staggering run, claiming gold on the final three Olympics and 6 of the final 9 world championships.
But Krikorian — a former UCLA water polo standout who calls the late basketball legend John Wooden his teaching idol — is much less involved with the outcomes. The scores don’t even come up when his workers reevaluates a observe or a sport. He preaches presence over perfection, a philosophy he highlighted when discussing Emily Ausmus, an attacker who Krikorian mentioned has taken on a bigger function as a defender “headfirst.”
At 18 years outdated, Ausmus is the crew’s youngest participant and represents a corps with no Olympic expertise on a roster almost cut up between first-time Olympians (seven) and returners (six). That expertise degree is a shift from the final Olympic cycle in Tokyo in 2021 when most gamers had been a part of the group that additionally received gold in Rio in 2016.
On the other finish of the expertise spectrum is Steffens, who helped lead the U.S. to gold on the final three Games. At the Tokyo Olympics, she grew to become the all-time main scorer in girls’s Olympic water polo. And if the U.S. girls get gold in Paris, Steffens will turn into the primary water polo participant to win 4 Olympic gold medals in a row.
Steffens, 31, can rattle off an inventory of youthful gamers on this 12 months’s roster with whom she related in earlier phases of life, highlighting the full-circle expertise for her this Games:
— Ryann Neushul, 24, is the third Neushul sister Steffens will play with on the Olympics. “I bear in mind when she was only a child,” Steffens mentioned;
— Jenna Flynn and Steffens posed together for a photo on the Rio Games when Flynn was a younger fan. “Now she’s at Stanford and right here on Team USA and certainly one of my closest buddies on the crew, and we’re 11 years aside.”
— Jewel Roemer is a Northern California native like Steffens, and Steffens grew up attending males’s scrimmages at Diablo Valley College coached by Roemer’s father. “I bear in mind getting cute movies from (Jewel) saying, ‘Good luck.’”
— Ausmus attended camps and clinics organized by Steffens’ firm, 6-8 Sports. “(She was) anyone we talked about 5, six, eight years in the past, like, ‘Oh my gosh, this woman’s so good and we’re actually excited to see her potential.’”
“We’ve actually created this particular bond,” Steffens mentioned of the youthful group. “And I believe as a lot as they appear as much as me as a pacesetter and have appeared as much as me since they had been youngsters and adopted that path, I believe what’s actually superb is I look as much as them simply as a lot.”
The U.S. girls’s water polo crew huddles through the Tokyo gold-medal match. The Americans are vying for a historic fourth straight Olympic gold. (Marcel ter Bals / BSR Agency / Getty Images)
Steffens is honest in her reward, as she is in her perception in her teammates. Ashleigh Johnson, who’s making her third Olympic look with Team USA, known as Steffens “a dreamer in all senses.”
“When you’re round Maggie, something is legitimately attainable,” mentioned Johnson, 29, the crew’s goalkeeper who’s extensively thought-about the very best on the earth at her place. “She’s our captain, however as her buddy, she’s going to construct a method for any dream to return true. And if you happen to imagine one thing, she believes it and also you guys are going to perform it collectively.”
For instance, Johnson mentioned, Steffens sometimes encourages others whereas grinding by the toughest components of coaching or pushing by a last swim set. Outside of the pool, Steffens is the one to land in a brand new metropolis after 24 hours of touring and both have a full itinerary prepared or discover with out a plan. She has an “Energizer Bunny perspective,” in accordance with Johnson.
That boundless power has carried over into different aspects as Steffens and Johnson have turn into de facto ambassadors of their sport, a task that wasn’t all the time pure to them. In 2016, Johnson grew to become the primary Black lady to make the U.S. Olympic water polo crew. She mentioned, over time, she’s felt extra empowered to discuss her experiences, share her story and champion range to encourage others.
Steffens, who joined the crew when she was 15 years outdated, mentioned it’s taken her 15 or 16 years to search out her voice when it comes to advocating for ladies’s athletes and extra overtly discussing the monetary challenges of pursuing the game.
Olympic water polo coaching takes place in Southern California, an space of the nation with a notoriously excessive price of residing. In an Olympic 12 months, coaching is six days every week and is basically a full-time job for the athletes, Steffens mentioned.
Payouts on the Games depend upon the game, nation and end, however the International Olympic Committee and every sport’s governing physique haven’t historically paid winners. In a primary for a global federation, World Athletics, which oversees monitor and discipline, introduced in April it might award $50,000 in prize cash to gold medalists on the Paris Games.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee gave athletes $37,500 for successful gold, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze on the Tokyo Olympics.
Steffens mentioned she would play water polo — which doesn’t have knowledgeable girls’s league within the U.S. — if she made no cash and needed to sofa surf, however her hope is for future water polo athletes to not must work different jobs to help themselves whereas performing on the highest degree.
“I’d like to see sooner or later folks retire a lot later of their profession as a result of they will afford to maintain enjoying water polo and don’t really feel like they must retire at 22 to get a ‘actual job,’” she mentioned.
Any help helps, Steffens mentioned, and Flav’s sponsorship is an instance of the payoff she’s seen after posting concerning the subject.
“One factor that I really like about water polo and about our crew is it’s a really head-down, humble, hard-work mentality,” Steffens mentioned. “And certainly one of my goals is to go away the game and the ladies on this sport higher than once I got here in, and hopefully present extra alternative, present extra publicity, let their tales be advised, let their names be heard.”
Steffens is aware of there’s extra work to do and extra followers to rally. But each counts, and to date, she’s hitting her objectives.
GO DEEPER
From Stanford to Team USA, a water polo dynasty eyes an Olympic four-peat
(Top illustration of Maggie Steffens and Flavor Flav: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photographs: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images, Jerod Harris / Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
