Old U.S. Olympic Water Polo Stalwarts Just Fade Away

In the months since the last Olympic Games, the United States water polo team has quietly faded into retirement.

One star at a time, the water polo players who carried the U.S. hopes for more than a decade, who won Olympic silver medals in 1984 and 1988, who modeled their California tans for a famous pinup poster, have returned to their landlubber lives as doctors and lawyers and real estate developers.

Terry Schroeder? Retired. Craig Wilson? Retired. Peter Campbell? Retired. Jody Campbell? Retired.

There are a few familiar names left on the roster, but, for all intents and purposes, U.S. Coach Bill Barnett is starting from scratch with the swimmers who are gathering regularly in the Newport Harbor High pool, the swimmers who will form the U.S. National team and, eventually, the 1992 Olympic team.

Barnett is enthusiastic but realistic.

“We’re going to have to be a little bit patient while this team develops,” he said last week, after trimming his roster to 24 field players and six goalies. “There’s a lot of talent and a lot of potential here, but we’ll have to keep in mind that this is a very young team.”

Over the next few weeks Barnett will trim the roster even more, getting down to 18 field players and four goalies.

One of the players Barnett expects to make the cut, though, is Olympic swim star Matt Biondi.

Biondi, who won 1988 Olympic gold in the 50- and 100-meter freestyles, the gold as a member of the 400-meter freestyle relay, the 400-meter medley relay and the 800-meter freestyle relay, the silver in the 100-meter butterfly and the bronze in the 200-meter freestyle, is more than just a sprinter. He’s a water polo player from way back.

Even in high school, he liked water polo best. And at the University of California, Biondi played on water polo teams that won the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship three of his four years.

When asked what kind of life he planned after the Olympics, Biondi was always careful to say that he would like to make the U.S. water polo team. He never considered it a given.

Barnett said: “I’d say he’s a very serious contender to make the team.”

Biondi has a very busy schedule of appearances, but Barnett said that, after next weekend, Biondi is going to be able to make most of the team’s weekend workouts and most of the two evening workouts during the week.

The U.S. team will train in Newport Beach except for a couple of weeks in mid-March and early April when workouts will be at Stanford. The team’s first competition will be a series of exhibition games against the Cubans.

The team will compete in a tournament at Tbilisi in the Soviet Union May 24-28 and will train in Italy July 3-8 in preparation for the FINA Cup at West Berlin, July 11-16.