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Taste Flav realizes it’s an surprising crossover.
The rap icon as soon as had solely a obscure consciousness of water polo, as he’d seen Olympic matches on tv. However 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 sort of relationship does rap have with water polo? None,” mentioned Flav.
Till now.
How the collaboration got here collectively is well-documented: Maggie Steffens, the U.S. girls’s staff’s longtime captain, posted a photograph of the gamers on her Instagram in Might with a caption outlining challenges the athletes usually face, together with that gamers sometimes work a number of jobs whereas pursuing their Olympic desires. She referred to as on her followers to observe and help girls’s sports activities.
Flav, who mentioned his supervisor initially flagged the submit, responded to the decision, pledging his help. Thus, an unprecedented partnership was born. He and Steffens appeared collectively final Monday on “CBS Mornings,” the place Flav introduced he would give $1,000 to every staff member and a Virgin Voyage cruise to the squad.
The 65-year-old Rock and Roll Corridor of Famer informed The Athletic he plans to attend the Paris Video games, cheering on the staff as they purpose for a fourth straight Olympic gold medal, a feat that has not but been completed by any males’s or girls’s water polo staff.
“I’m there to hype them up. I’m there to attempt to get them into that spirit of profitable that fourth gold medal,” Flav mentioned with a confidence befitting his function. “… And I do know we will do it. We’re gonna get it.”
Flav additionally mentioned he plans to attend the ladies’s staff’s remaining pre-Olympic residence match in opposition to Hungary. He wrote in a submit on X he’ll be at Tuesday’s match in Berkeley, Calif., and can take pictures and signal autographs “earlier than and after the sport however not through the recreation” so he can keep locked in.
Imma be on the recreation on Tuesday,,, I shall be taking pictures and signing autographs earlier than and after the sport however not through the recreation,,, all of us right here to cheer on these girls https://t.co/8AHYAtzE0R
— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) July 3, 2024
“I’m attempting 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 america look good.”
The U.S. girls’s water polo staff has welcomed the extra eyeballs as they go for an Olympic file. Coach Adam Krikorian, who has guided america to extra Olympic golds than any coach on any staff in girls’s water polo, referred to as it “a sport that’s been ravenous for consideration and searching for notoriety.”
“We’re a staff that looks like, at instances, we go unnoticed,” he mentioned. “And so, when you have got somebody who’s within the highlight share their love and their ardour for our staff, it’s touching. We adore it. We embrace it. We hope it evokes 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 have to be with us at first.”
What any new followers shall 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.
However Krikorian — a former UCLA water polo standout who calls the late basketball legend John Wood his teaching idol — is much less involved with the outcomes. The scores don’t even come up when his employees reevaluates a apply or a recreation. 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 previous, Ausmus is the staff’s youngest participant and represents a corps with no Olympic expertise on a roster practically cut up between first-time Olympians (seven) and returners (six). That have stage is a shift from the final Olympic cycle in Tokyo in 2021 when most gamers have 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 Video games. On 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 grow to be 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 Video games:
— Ryann Neushul, 24, is the third Neushul sister Steffens will play with on the Olympics. “I keep in mind when she was only a child,” Steffens mentioned;
— Jenna Flynn and Steffens posed collectively for a photograph on the Rio Video games when Flynn was a younger fan. “Now she’s at Stanford and right here on Crew USA and considered one of my closest mates on the staff, 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 Faculty coached by Roemer’s father. “I keep in mind getting cute movies from (Jewel) saying, ‘Good luck.’”
— Ausmus attended camps and clinics organized by Steffens’ firm, 6-8 Sports activities. “(She was) any person 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 feel as a lot as they give the impression of being as much as me as a frontrunner and have appeared as much as me since they have been children and adopted that path, I feel what’s actually superb is I look as much as them simply as a lot.”
The U.S. girls’s water polo staff huddles through the Tokyo gold-medal match. The People are vying for a historic fourth straight Olympic gold. (Marcel ter Bals / BSR Company / Getty Pictures)
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 Crew USA, referred to as Steffens “a dreamer in all senses.”
“Once you’re round Maggie, something is legitimately potential,” mentioned Johnson, 29, the staff’s goalkeeper who’s broadly thought-about the most effective on the planet at her place. “She’s our captain, however as her buddy, she is going to construct a means for any dream to come back true. And in case you 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 remaining swim set. Exterior 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 and not using a plan. She has an “Energizer Bunny angle,” based on Johnson.
That boundless power has carried over into different aspects as Steffens and Johnson have grow to be 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 staff. She mentioned, over time, she’s felt extra empowered to talk about her experiences, share her story and champion variety to encourage others.
Steffens, who joined the staff when she was 15 years previous, mentioned it’s taken her 15 or 16 years to seek out her voice by way of advocating for ladies’s athletes and extra brazenly 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 dwelling. In an Olympic 12 months, coaching is six days every week and is actually a full-time job for the athletes, Steffens mentioned.
Payouts on the Video games rely on the game, nation and end, however the Worldwide Olympic Committee and every sport’s governing physique haven’t historically paid winners. In a primary for a world federation, World Athletics, which oversees observe and subject, introduced in April it might award $50,000 in prize cash to gold medalists on the Paris Video games.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee gave athletes $37,500 for profitable 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 should work different jobs to help themselves whereas performing on the highest stage.
“I’d like to see sooner or later individuals retire a lot later of their profession as a result of they’ll afford to maintain enjoying water polo and don’t really feel like they should 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 like about water polo and about our staff is it’s a really head-down, humble, hard-work mentality,” Steffens mentioned. “And considered one of my desires is to depart the game and the ladies on this sport higher than after I got here in, and hopefully present extra alternative, present extra publicity, let their tales be informed, let their names be heard.”
Steffens is aware of there’s extra work to do and extra followers to rally. However every one counts, and to date, she’s hitting her objectives.
GO DEEPER
From Stanford to Crew USA, a water polo dynasty eyes an Olympic four-peat
(High illustration of Maggie Steffens and Taste Flav: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; pictures: Ronald Martinez / Getty Pictures, Jerod Harris / Getty Pictures for The Recording Academy)
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