Doug Burke, Jody Campbell, Chris Dorst, Terry Schroeder, Kevin Robertson, Jon Svendsen, Joe Vargas, John Siman, Drew McDonald, Monte Nitzkowski and Ken Lindgren would stay together for four more years. Most would have retired after 1980.
Absence does make the heart grow fonder.
In February of 1984, in the hopes that we could overcome the handicap of our being relatively isolated from international water polo, we initiated a new program. A full-time training program was put into place six months before the Games. This move paid off and Germany and the U.S. came into the Games as co-favorites. The Soviets parlayed Carter's boycott with one of their own, taking most of the Eastern Bloc countries with them. Neither Russia nor Hungary were represented in Los Angeles, but the other water polo teams were there.