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USC coach Jovan Vavic has been one of the biggest proponents of recruiting international players

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Unlike other collegiate coaches, Cardinal coach John Tanner deals with finding talented players w

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The Hawai’i team has nine international players, the most of any team in the nation. Coach

It started with a visit during the junior European championships, recalls Anna Pardo.

Coach Jovan Vavic approached Pardo, who was playing for Club Esportiu Mediterrani at the time, and told her he was recruiting for USC.

Armed with a business card, a USC magazine and examples of successful foreign Trojan players such as Aniko Pelle (Hungary) and Sofia Konoukh (Russia), Vavic began recruiting the 18-year-old Pardo.

“I haven’t even heard about stuff like this. I was shocked that someone wanted me to play for their U.S. team,” Pardo said. “He called me once in a while and talked about good reasons to come.”

Dutch national team member Iefke Van Belkum, who was named MPSF Player of the Year this season as a sophomore, remembers getting e-mails from former Hawai’i team manager Karin Vanhos to come to the U.S.

She couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

“I couldn’t do a combination of school and water polo (in the Netherlands),” Van Belkum said. “Getting to come here is so important because I know you don’t make money playing water polo for the rest of your life. A degree in America means so much.”

A decade ago, seeing an international player competing in U.S. collegiate women’s water polo was an anomaly. But because of water polo’s increased popularity globally, a steady stream of foreign influence, and the perks of attending an American college, international players are swarming to the states.

“It’s all about opportunities,” said U.S. Women’s National Team coach Guy Baker. “It’s a great time in their life and they get a chance to experience a new culture and play a sport they love. How can anyone pass that up?”

Thousands of miles away

The perks may be present for international players, but trading in familiarity for uncertainty is no easy decision.

“I wasn’t sure,” Pardo said. “I was thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ Here’s this guy from the U.S. telling me to come to USC. Are you kidding? I thought it was impossible.”

Pardo weighed her options with her parents, Alberto and Teresa. Her biggest qualms were not about stepping into a country with vast differences culturally. Her biggest worry was leaving home.

For Van Belkum, getting into Hawai’i wasn’t as difficult. She breezed through the SAT and passed an English test.

However, her safety net was continuously reminding herself that if she couldn’t adjust, she would have the option of returning to her homeland of Leiden, Netherlands.

“You don’t know how it’s going to work out,” Van Belkum said. “You have to try once or else you’ll regret having not tried.”

She made her decision to become a Trojan in January 2004.

It wasn’t easy getting there. Pardo was faced with preparation and paperwork.

“It was a headache,” said Pardo, who will graduate with an International Relations degree this summer.

Pardo’s parents call her every day. They constantly check the USC Web site to keep track of how their daughter is doing. Her parents constantly ask her about school. Pardo diverges and talks about how much water polo consumes her life.

“I don’t think they realize how important (water polo) is here and how much I think about water polo in and out of the pool,” she said. “Sometimes, it’s tough, though. Sometimes I just want to go home, but I chose this.”

European front

The deluge of international players has always been a mainstay at USC.

Vavic, a 42-year-old native of Yugoslavia and 10-year veteran coach of USC, has been coaching in some fashion for nearly two decades.

The fiery coach has racked up the frequent flyer miles, making trips to Serbia-Montenegro, Hungary, Australia and Italy during the summer. He’s a regular at the World Championships every two years. Since the 1999 season, Vavic has had at least two international players on his team, with the 2002 squad having the most – six.

“I have good connections in Europe because I’ve played over there,” Vavic said. “Many of my friends are coaches and they have a good understanding of what I’m looking for.

“You look for the best players here and when you can’t get them, then you have to get them somewhere else.”

Coach Michel Roy has followed in Vavic’s footsteps since taking the helm at Hawai’i four years ago.

Roy, who has spent more than 25 years as part of Canada’s water polo program, including 17 as a professional, has a Treo cellular phone bursting with so many international numbers it seems like he has a transcript from a foreign film.

He’s had to use every one of them. Three years ago, Roy recalled, he flew in about 20 Californian athletes, not the top 40 players, but those in the top 60. Out of those 20, only one or two athletes signed with Hawai’i.

“The top athletes in California will not come to Hawai’i,” Roy said. “It might be the school or just too far away from home. So it’s difficult to recruit Americans in the top 40, which is very sad.”

Roy has used the system of recruitment, however, to his advantage.

California has three types of tuitions – in-state, out-of-state and international. But in Hawai’i, there are only two – international and in-state. When Roy brings in international players, it’s like bringing in out-of-state players, so it’s much cheaper. The school, therefore, needs to give only a 75 percent scholarship – tuition, room and board (the players pay for their food).

“We have no choice,” Roy said. “If we want to compete that’s the only thing we can do.”

This season, Roy has nine international players on his roster – two from The Netherlands, six from New Zealand and one from Canada. Former New Zealand National Team coach Peter Szilagyi (now the Hungary coach) was instrumental in bringing Roy his players.

The international trend is burgeoning, and it doesn’t seem to be losing steam anytime soon.

“It’s definitely more evident today that more players are from Europe,” UCLA senior and women’s water polo player Thalia Munro said.

Aside from coaches tapping into their connections overseas, players make phone calls back home. Players often have such positive experiences in the U.S., they relay the perks to friends at home. Interest soars.

“You get two girls that come here, and they tell the rest how good it is,” Van Belkum said. “The other girls just want to come. They ask, ‘Are there more spots?’”

Mixing of Waters

There are some mixed reviews over allowing international players to compete in U.S. collegiate water polo.

Hawai’i may be getting the brunt of it.

“I’m international myself so of course I think so,” said Roy on whether he thinks it’s a good thing to have international players coming to the U.S.

“A lot of people think negatively of us. ... It’s almost racist. But you know what, (having international players) helps this country to be a better country. It helps everybody and all the players. There are new styles, new techniques to be learned. It helps everybody.”

Many coaches and players feel the integration of foreign players will evolve the game of collegiate water polo. Questions still loom on whether there will be setbacks.

“If they take a scholarship away from a player here, then I personally don’t think that’s right,” former U.S. Women’s National Team coach Bill Barnett said.

Many coaches are forced to recruit internationally because top American players continue to attend the top three water polo schools – UCLA, USC and Stanford. That has changed. Many coaches such as California coach Rich Corso know the perks of players from overseas – more experience, maturity and fundamentally sound.

“If you need someone to make a quick impact, you go Euro,” Corso said.

Nevertheless, the sharing of technical and tactical knowledge between foreign and American styles is evident and has changed the game.

“It makes for better competition,” current U.S. Women’s National Team player and former Bruin Natalie Golda said. “I think it helps players that want to play for the national team and see how other teams perform.”

Golda added that if American players are given the opportunity to play in European leagues, there shouldn’t be any bickering involved if the roles are reversed.

UCLA coach Adam Krikorian sees it as a positive step to breaking boundaries.

“I think it’s a sign that women’s water polo is growing throughout the world,” he said. “Some of these countries are accepting finally that women can play sports. Some of the countries like Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro have the best men’s teams in the world, but I’m just assuming they don’t accept women playing a sport. It boggles my mind.”

Unwritten rule

Sure, it’s competitive and difficult to meet the academic requirements to enter schools like UCLA and Stanford, but coaches have their theory on why schools like UCLA don’t need to recruit internationally.

“It’s an unwritten rule in the past years that if you want to be a part of the (U.S. national team), you have to go to UCLA,” Roy said.

The connection is Baker, who was a UCLA coach for both the men’s and women’s programs. Baker receives direct input on UCLA players from Krikorian, who was also a former player of Baker’s in 1995. In the 2004 Olympics in Athens, seven of the 15 players on the U.S. team were former Bruins.

When asked if he has heard about this unwritten rule, Corso was quick to dispel the idea.

“I’ve never heard that before,” Corso said. “If a prospective student athlete says that to me, (I would say) the thing we can offer is education and Olympic-caliber talent. No girl has talked to me about (having to go to UCLA to be on the U.S. national team) and I’d be shocked if it were true.”

Some things never change

Stored deep in his e-mail inbox, Krikorian sees the number of files accumulate.

“There’s probably around 150 to 200,” said Krikorian, who paused to think how many e-mails he has collected from international players pining to play for UCLA.

It’s become routine for him. Drag. Drop. Unread folder.

“It’s too much to handle, to be honest,” he said. “I get multiple e-mails a day from kids from this country and out of country that want to play water polo for this program.”

Sometimes one gets away. While sifting through his ever-accumulating “to read” list recently, Krikorian came across an e-mail from Van Belkum. The current Hawai’i player, who had a tremendous season leading the MPSF conference in scoring, showed interest in playing for the Bruins.

“I didn’t even respond to her,” Krikorian said. “She’s like the best player in the country right now.”

Missed opportunity?

“In a way, but I have a lot of good players. So, what I don’t get internationally, I feel I can convince to come here to UCLA,” Krikorian said.

The opportunities for an American player to meet requirements at Stanford, which is ranked fifth in the 2006 edition of U.S. News & World Report for top undergraduate colleges in the nation, are difficult enough for anyone, let alone for an international player.

Current Cardinal two-meter defender Nancy El-Sakkary has been the only international player to have been able to meet the academic guidelines at Stanford. A member of the Canadian national team, El-Sakkary is an electrical engineering major, and both her parents have graduate degrees.

“There are hundreds of great players every year that are interested in playing in college and a very small percentage can,” Stanford coach John Tanner said. “We don’t intentionally go looking elsewhere.”

During his seven-year tenure as coach of the UCLA women’s program, Krikorian has only had one international player – Kelly Heuchan from Australia (2000-02).

Although he sees the positives of an expanding collegiate game, Krikorian does not foresee himself recruiting internationally.

“I prefer to have Americans and develop our kids over here,” Krikorian said. “I want to see the U.S. win a gold medal.

“I think, as an American, we love to see our national programs do well and our Olympic team do well. That provides more opportunities on the collegiate level.”