Games Are Just the Beginning : Water polo: After competing, Campbell will spend five months traveling in Europe and Africa before returning to U.S. to start his career.

When the Olympic water polo competition ends Aug. 9 in Barcelona, Jeff Campbell’s European vacation will begin.

By then Campbell hopes to have helped the U.S. team win its first gold medal in water polo since 1904, a year in which all teams competing were from the United States.

But regardless of the result, Campbell and his girlfriend, Gabriela Meneses, plan to grab their backpacks and take a train from Barcelona to Amsterdam. There they’ll pick up the 1978 Volkswagen camper van that Campbell has arranged to buy and hit the road for five months.

“I’ve been to Europe 20 times but I’ve never seen anything besides the hotel room, the pool and the airport,” Campbell said. “So it’s a chance to see a bit more.”

And after selling the van in January, the couple will continue to eastern Africa and explore some more “until our money runs out,” Campbell said.

Campbell has taken similar trips before. He once took time off from his studies and water polo at UC Irvine and trekked through New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. Last year he and Meneses traveled in Chile and visited Antarctica.

The new opportunity for adventure couldn’t have come at a better time. Meneses graduated from UC Irvine in June and Campbell plans to retire from the national team after the Olympics. Neither is in a hurry to start their careers.

“That’s what is perfect about the trip,” Campbell said. “It’s a big break in our lives before we get on to working.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. The economy is bad so this is a good time to be able to get away. And hopefully by the spring of ‘93, things will have turned around a little bit and it will be easier to get a job.”

First, however, there’s the matter of Olympic competition, and Campbell, who was a member of the U.S. team that lost the gold-medal match in overtime to Yugoslavia in Seoul, says this team seems prepared.

“I actually think we might have a better chance of winning this time,” he said. “I don’t think the team’s better, but it seems that with this team now we have won games that we shouldn’t have won. I don’t know; there’s something about it.”

The Americans caught a bit of a break when Yugoslavia, the favorite and winner of the past two Olympic golds, was banned from team competitions. But there are at least six teams with a shot at the title.

Campbell is valuable to the U.S. team because of his versatility, U.S. Coach Bill Barnett said.

He’s very strong on offense and defense and his combination of size (6 feet 4, 208 pounds), speed, stamina and strength allows him to play any position other than goalkeeper.

Campbell has excelled at every level of the sport. He was an All-Southern Section selection for University High School and went to UC Irvine, where he joined his older brother, Peter, on the undefeated 1982 Anteater team that won the NCAA title.

Peter, who played on the 1984 and ’88 Olympic teams, was the last player cut from the ’92 team.

As a senior in 1985, Jeff was named the NCAA player of the year after helping Irvine to a second-place NCAA finish.

After the 1988 Olympics, Campbell, whose degree is in economics, took a job as a research assistant for a real estate firm but grew weary of working full-time while trying to stay in shape for water polo.

So in 1990, Campbell accepted an offer to play professionally for a lower-division team in Siracusa, Sicily. Although the level of water polo was sub-par, the experience was worthwhile.

The town, Campbell said, was once a center of ancient Greek life and the mathematician Archimedes was then a resident. Campbell lived in a 400-year-old building with no indoor plumbing.

“It was definitely a change of pace because I’ve lived almost my whole life in Orange County, this plastic suburbia,” he said. “It’s a good change to go someplace with so much history.”

Starting Aug. 1, Campbell will try to help the U.S. team make some history of its own.

Win or lose, Campbell believes this will be his final Games.

“There’s a big draw to come back because I think you miss the competition and the camaraderie with the guys,” Campbell said. “It’s something you’ll probably never experience the rest of your life.

“But I’ll be 30 in October and I’ve had 10 good years of water polo.”